


The Bullet Farmer's Daughter

by GoeticDisciple



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies), Max Mad Fury Road, fury road
Genre: Betrayal, Canon-Typical Violence, Dubious Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Inappropriate Behavior, Intrigue, Politics, Rough Sex, Sexual Tension, Sexual Violence, Underage - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-02
Updated: 2016-04-14
Packaged: 2018-04-02 14:02:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 21
Words: 66,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4062679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoeticDisciple/pseuds/GoeticDisciple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not all women of the Wasteland want the Warlords' regime to end. Caliber Kalashnikov is one of them.</p><p>Make sure you read the tags.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

A tall figure leaned heavily on the rampart, squinting into the grit scrubbing the land beyond the mine.

A wrecker came banging along the dirt track. Its claw gripped the twisted carcass of something that gleamed gold in the morning light.

Caliber Kalashnikov recognized the Peacemaker and knew. He was dead. They all were dead.

She pressed fists into the scoured steel before her and screamed.

She was the Bullet Farmer’s daughter.

 

___________________________

 

That night, Cal lay in her bed, warmed by the Polecat snoring next to her. They had been carrying on in secret for quite some time but now with Pa dead, secrets didn’t matter any more. The Polecat’s name was Trap.

She was restless and kept turning. Eventually, Trap’s snoring misfired and he woke. “You move more than brass in a tumbler.”

Pointing her shoulder at the low ceiling, Cal tried to be still. It didn't work. After a while, she flopped on her back and sighed.

“You’re worried.” Trap stroked her long thigh, rough fingers bumping over scars.

“Of course I’m worried. The whole world is junked.”

“The world’s been junked as long as we’ve been alive.”

“At least we had them. The Brothers-in-Arms. They kept it going.”

Trap levered himself up on one arm, looking down at her. In the dim light, the smooth curves of his muscles were echoes of dunecrests. So chrome, she thought. For now.

“Trap,” she said, “Can we rebuild the Peacemaker?”

He shook his head. The tumor on the back of his neck was only now just visible. A tiny promise of another loss, to be heaped upon all the rest.

Breath caught in Cal's throat. Tomorrow, she would take a war party out to the Bog. They would find her father’s body and bring it back. Or what the crows had left.

Her heart twisted in her chest.

“Is it true Furiosa brought Joe back, cooked on top of the Gigahorse’s engine?”

“It’s fuku-true. Then the Wretched ripped him apart.”

Cal could have done without that last bit. Her sigh was ragged.

Trap touched her face with a gentle finger. “You’re wasting water.”

 

______________________________

She’d always gotten on with Joe.

Before the Gigahorse, there was the Mackinaw. Cal stood in the open bed, toes on the lancer’s step, next to the whaler’s harpoon. The day was unusually cool and overcast. Perfect for riding. They were speeding to Gas Town, ten tires beneath them chewing up road. She’d begged her father to let her accompany Joe and finally he’d relented, but only after a long, dangerous look had passed between the two warlords.

Joe stood next to her on the Mackinaw’s corrugated gunner platform while the enormous, boatlike truck sailed over the sand. Caliber liked her Uncle Joe. Yes, she had seen him cruel, seen him angry, his blue eyes hard chips of paint in the pallid dune of his face. When Joe was angry, the sand bled. But he wasn’t always angry. Sometimes he was soft. When he was soft, he brought her things: a stuffed, one-eyed dog; a scarf made of slick, coppery fabric. The scarf was wrapped around her left wrist, the dog safely on a shelf in her bedroom. They were both so soft.  Joe could be soft. He was soft now.

“Are you enjoying the ride, Callie?” he rumbled through his respirator.

“Very much, Uncle Joe.” She looked up and they smiled at each other. His eyes crinkled above the mask, her cheeks seamed around the scar where a bullet  has grazed her. Uncle Joe, so big and strong and proud, his silvering hair whipping back from his forehead, sharp against the plate steel sky.

“You’ll help me, when we get to Gas Town? Push the cart with the produce, yes?”

Cal, fourteen, felt her breast swell with pride. “Oh, yes.”

Joe put his hand on her shoulder.

“My Callie,” he said.

“I’m glad Pa let me come along.”

Joe’s fingers tightened, then relaxed. It made a strange shiver flow through her. “I am, too.”

 

_______________________________

 

There had been an enormous argument between Joe and Pa after the Gas Town run. Cal heard the cocking of weapons and her father’s strident voice raised to almost a shriek. Joe’s own bellow was a landslide of gravel. An Imperator took Cal across the mine to sort brass. She did not understand why sorting brass at midnight was suddenly so important, or why the Imperator wouldn’t get one of the many slaves to do it, but she went anyway. At that point in her life, she was still a good girl. Her fingers had slipped amongst the buckets of casings, organizing by feel, by weight, but soon they slowed, distracted by an ache sitting low and hot across her abdomen. She’d been experiencing this more lately. After an hour, she left the tense Imperator and hurried to the latrine, then stood for a long time contemplating the blood curling down her leg.

The rag stuffed between her thighs stiffened her normally carefree walk into a shuffle. The Imperator saw her awkwardness. His tension increased. They sorted brass for two hours more until the desert chill became too much to bear.

Pa was standing in the kitchen, a cup unsteady in his hand. Joe was gone. The Imperator bade Cal stay at the door, then approached her father. He spoke one short phrase into her father’s ear. She saw her father’s shoulders slump. The Imperator hurried out, regarding Cal as if she were a bomb about to explode.

“Caliber,” her father said, stern. “No more rides in the Mackinaw.”

“But, Pa!“

"No."

"But I got to help! Joe let me push the cart and he told the People-Eater what a good job I was doing and here I never get to help–"

“I said, no! You mind me, child. Or you’ll feel the sting of my bullet belt.” Pa’s voice was tight and high with what she assumed was anger.

Cal slunk to her bedroom and cuddled the one-eyed stuffed dog for quite some time.

It was only later, much much later, when she understood what she’d heard in her father’s voice had not been anger, but fear.

________________________________

 

She’d gone to see the Gigahorse when it was first unveiled.

The fresh tattoos on her chin smarted in the sun as she stood in the turret of her tank. It was an M1 Abrams, a fitting chariot for the spinster daughter of the Bullet Farmer. Caliber draped one long arm over the machine gun on its pivot and smiled while the tides of Wretched lapped against the armor plating of the tank.

Her heart swelled as the platform clanked lower, bearing Joe’s massive new war machine. The twin Cadillac bodies humped each other as the proud black and red pennants snapped in the dry breeze. Joe stood in the harpooner’s turret. He appeared fat and relatively well. Cal raised her arms, interlacing her fingers in the salute of the Holy Vee Eight, looking at Joe from underneath her palms.

Cal touched her chin, then ran her fingers over her cheeks. The older tattoos were harder to feel. Ten bullets. Four on each cheek, two on the chin. A dead man behind each.

Her first husband’s bullet was fading. She would need to get it redone.

Maybe someday she’d have to add a bullet for Joe. A big .30-06, straight down the forehead.

Pa was still angry about Joe. Pa would probably be angry about Joe forever.

The platform touched dirt and the Gigahorse snarled to life. With a jerk, it rolled forward, casually crushing one of the Wretched under a front wheel. Rictus, driving, gave it some gas and took out three more. After that, the crowd parted and stayed that way.

The Abrams seemed small as the Gigahorse drew abreast. The exhaust pipes alone were the diameter of Cal’s thigh. Greater even.

Joe looked down at her from the turret. His blue eyes were hard, hard for the crowd, hard for her and all the trouble she'd caused over all the years.

“Immortan Joe!” Cal cried in salute.

“My Callie,” said Joe, coldly.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Memories come, memories go. In no particular order.

Maus was missing again.  
  
Cal supposed that was what Pa got for naming his second daughter Mauser. Maus was forever running away, pretending she didn’t know who she was or where she belonged. The last time she’d run, they’d had to pay a thousand rounds to get her back from the Rock Riders. Now, the only clue to her whereabouts was the sound of distant gunfire echoing from a ridge in the canyon. The flat pops sounded much like Maus’ Makarov pistol, a coming-of-age present from Pa.  
  
Cal put her forehead down on the battlement. They had no resources for a search party. All the men were taken up, either repairing the damaged vehicles or themselves too damaged to run.  
  
The long dark stretched out, blown silica sparkling in the moonlight.  
  
Maus. Out there. Somewhere.  
  
Pretending.

Cal wished she could pretend.  
  
Pa would have had the Peacemaker fired up and roostering sand from here to the Powder Lakes if he’d been alive. But he wasn’t. He was a leather bag full of bones wrapped in the tarp Cal had used to gather his remains from the Bog. The heaviest part of him had been his bullets. The desert wasted no time taking back flesh and blood.  
  
Her father’s absence was a gaping wound under her bandoliers.  
  
Light flashed against the undersides of scrappy clouds in the sky: the oil refinery was burning off natural gas. The message from the new GasTown warlord still sat on a table in Cal’s quarters. “Pay your debt.” That’s all it said. That’s all it needed to say.  
  
Maus would have to make her own way, at least for a while.  
  
They might be all dead, but the world still ground on, and it was just as cruel and merciless as before.  
  
Caliber closed her eyes to the flashes staining the night and moaned.  
  
  
  
  
_____________________________  
  
  
She would never forget Pa’s face when the Buzzards brought her back.  
  
Pa, on the best of days, had a visage like an old boot; stretched, scuffed, full of wrinkles perfect for catching dust. That day, his face had glistened with spit-polished fury.  
  
“She did _what_?” He’d thrown down the gun he’d had half-assembled in his lap and grabbed Cal by the arm, pulling her away from the tallest Buzzard.  
  
“Shot him,” the Buzzard croaked.  
  
“Dead?”  
  
The rags quivered. “Yes, dead. The Kerf, he is dead.” It came out “det.”  
  
“And you bring her back to me?”  
  
Wrapped shoulders shrugged. The tall Buzzard adjusted his goggles. His English was halting. “We do not want. She has already… cost too much.”  
  
From behind her father, Caliber rolled her lips back and hissed in triumph.  
  
The strike of Pa’s hand across her mouth sent one of her teeth flying into the scrub. Stunned, drooling blood, reflexively tonguing the hole where her incisor had been, Cal glared out from under the scruff of her dark hair and burned with satisfied hate.  
  
“How much do I owe you?” The Bullet Farmer rubbed his knuckles and glared at his daughter.  
  
“Ten thousand rounds.”

 

  
_________________________________  
  
  
  
Furiosa didn’t come down from Up Top as much as she should. At least not in the beginning.  
  
And that was what stuck.  
  
The Wretched were too stricken to pay attention to anything other than the water which was now distributed daily. Their world had been dirt and sun and death by thirst, now it was mud and sun and death by starvation. The downshift of their suffering chugged through the filth, grinding gears.  
  
Those who were fortunate enough to live in the shade and the lower levels of Citadel had more energy with which to contemplate Furiosa’s absence. The Wives – the Sisters – they came down. Capable. And Dag. Sometimes Toast. Cheedo less often. It was rumored she woke screaming each night and had to be held down until she calmed. But not Furiosa. Furiosa was a ghost.  
  
So yes, there was water.  
  
And that was good.  
  
But not much else had changed.  
  
The Bullet Farm convoy plowed up the long drive, vehicles and humans relaxing once the cool shade of the vast rock towers enveloped them. Cal patted the crate firmly tied down in the battle truck’s bed. Not bullets, but explosives. Furiosa was looking for another aquifer, or so she said.  
  
Furiosa did not know how many times Joe had done the exact same thing. Looked… and failed. Cal knew. Joe had told her so one night, weary and wheezing, while she salved his skin.  
  
A signal light flashed from the top of the Citadel. The Bullet Farmers killed their engines. The platform began to come down. The tide of Wretched moved towards it, begging to be let up. They would always beg, no matter how many were allowed entry. It would never end.  
  
“The problem with idealists,” Cal said softly between engine pings, “is that they don’t think about what needs to happen _after_.”  
  
  
  
  
_______________________________________  
  
  
  
“Do you feel tired sometimes?”  
  
The Citadel had the best Organic Mechanic of any of the towns. Cal sat on an examining table which had once been a plane wing. Beneath the hem of her ragged shift, her feet swung nervously. This was only the second time she had been to the Citadel. A lady covered in writing watched from the corner, hands bunched together. Pa had told Cal she was a teacher and would look after her while he was away. All that writing scared Cal. So much. So dense.  
  
“Tired? Sleepy? Come on, answer the question.”  
  
Cal turned her round eyes towards the Wasteland doctor and shook her head. She was five.  
  
“No?”  
  
Another head shake.  
  
“Open your mouth. Tongue out. Ahhh.”  
  
The spoon he used as a tongue depressor tasted of dirty metal. She made a face, which seemed to amuse the Mechanic.  
  
“Don’t like that, huh?”  
  
“Is she well?” asked the teacher.  
  
“Hold your water,” the Mechanic said, curt. His rough hands felt Cal’s neck, probed her armpits. He used a bright, hot light to look into her ears and eyes. She balked for a moment when he asked her to pull her shift off. Pa had always been stern about not letting strange men undress her. Pa’s word was law and he was not to be disobeyed. Her legs were still striped with bruises from the last strapping. Unsure, she looked at the teacher for reassurance.  
  
The woman understood. “It’s fine, dear.”  
  
The Mechanic poked and prodded everywhere. At one point, the teacher came and held Cal’s hand while the cold metal tip of the same spoon used in her mouth probed a much more delicate spot. If it hadn’t been for the other woman’s calming presence, Cal would have thought a horrible thing had been done to her.  
  
“Looks chrome enough,” the Mechanic pronounced.  
  
“Her father will be glad.”  
  
“Which one does she belong to? I can’t keep track.”  
  
“The Bullet Farmer.”  
  
“Huh.” The Mechanic stepped back, turning off his bright light. Cal, used to spending most of her time in the dark rooms of the Farm, squinted blindly into the green afterimages cluttering her vision. She did not see the Mechanic cast a thumb at her spindly legs but she did hear him say, “He beats her. You can see the marks of the shells from the belt. .308s I’d say.”  
  
“But nothing else, right?”  
  
“No. Untouched.”  
  
“That’s fine, then.”

 

  
  
_______________________________________  
  
  
  
The Peacemaker, or what was left of it, had been dragged to the graveyard behind the Bullet Farm.  
  
Under the blistering light of the moon, Cal traced the lacy roadmap of dried gore covering the captain’s chair.    
  
“Pa,” she whispered, holding her belly. It felt heavier every day and it hurt. “Pa, what do I do?”  
  
She took a thin file from her pocket and sawed off a small sliver of the gold body panel. The fragment had been pierced through by a bullet. She would shape the sides smooth and wear it around her neck and maybe it would help her be more like her father, who always had been able to see all sides of things.  
  
As she was climbing down from the ruined tank, something clunked within the track system. The twisted treads cut her fingers as she searched blindly in the dark. Nothing but mangle… then finally, a long, smooth shape. Gun barrel. She lifted the Colt Buntline from where it had fallen from the shredded cockpit. Pa’s. It still stank of the last time it had been fired.  
  
She took that, too.

 

 

  
________________________________________  
  
  
Uncle Joe was weeping.  
  
He’d been in the same place for several hours now, seated on the piano bench. The limp body of the baby was in his lap, the gray cord still twisted around its neck.  
  
Off in the bedroom, the Wife whose body had strangled a “viable” child (Cal wasn’t sure what that meant, but it seemed important, as the word had been repeated in varying stages of anguish throughout the night) was sleeping, watched over by the others. Tomorrow she would be cast out amongst the Wretched for having used up all her “strikes.” Cal wasn’t sure what that meant either, but it didn’t sound good.  
  
It was bad the baby had been stillborn. She wondered what they would do with the body. Certainly they would not eat it, like the Buzzards out in the Wastes.  
  
Cal felt frightened. She did not like spending time with the Wives or their girlchildren. Pa said it was good for her to come here and “socialize.” She was ten and did not agree. She wished she was down in the Blood Shed. That was fine. The sick War Pups and Boys rarely spoke but would give wan smiles when she taught them how to write their names in the dust on their chests. The Garage would be fine, too. She could curl up in a wheel well and dream. Up here, there was nothing but books and lessons and everyone was sad.  
  
Especially Uncle Joe. She could see the wet gleams of tears on his cheek. They disappeared under his mask and reappeared beneath, little rivers running over the rough skin of his throat.  
  
Moving quietly, she stole across to the table set with plates for the dinner which had never come. The Wife’s sudden labor had preempted the meal. In the center of the table, a tiny vase, water glistening inside, held three red flowers. From a garden room, Cal knew. The most beautiful color red she had ever seen. Red like the war pennants decorating Uncle Joe’s war wagon. Red like several of the badges glued to his pauldron.  
  
Red was powerful, red was strength.  
  
Joe liked red.  
  
He sensed her approach. He lifted the babe and set it aside, covering its strangled face with slow movements.  
  
“I brought you this, Uncle Joe.” Cal held up the flower. “So you won’t be sad.”  
  
Most of his white makeup was off. With that and the smaller respirator he wore behind closed doors, he was not nearly as scary as earlier. Cal knew he was a god when he stood at the Skullmouth balcony. He was a god when his hair was down and the skull-face was on, scepter in hand, loaded guns a-holstered.  He had been a god earlier, as the baby was being born. But he was just uncle now.  
  
She saw fresh tears form in his eyes again. A bolt of fear speared her as she thought he would become angry. He’d kicked one girl across the room already tonight.  
  
“My Callie,” he said in a broken voice. “Sweet Callie. All the rest are hiding. Yet you are here.”  
  
“I’m sorry the baby died, Uncle.”  
  
“Come, sit.” He took the flower from her and scooped her up. Pa never had her sit on his lap. Pa was all rules and business and the back of his hand. This physical closeness was novel to Cal, and she instinctively snuggled against the warlord’s barrel chest. She felt the flower being tucked over her ear.  
  
“But that’s for you,” she protested.  
  
His voice was soft, steadier now, not so broken. “A beautiful gift from a beautiful girl and it suits you more than me. I would be glad if you would wear it.”  
  
She felt him smoothing her braids, his fingers toying with the shell casings decorating the end of each plait. “You are your father’s daughter, that is for certain, ” Joe said.  
  
“Pa doesn’t like them. Says they make me look barbaric. What’s barbaric, Uncle Joe?”  
  
He smiled broadly behind his mask and spent more time arranging her hair as he spoke. “Barbaric is a Wretch who lives in a dirt hole Down Below. Barbaric is a bike gang who kills and steals from our convoys. Barbaric is not knowing how to write your name, or read a book.”  
  
“I can do both those things!”  
  
“And very well, my Callie. I heard you reading earlier.”  
  
“So I’m not ‘barbaric’?”  
  
“Not in the least, child.” He adjusted the flower one more time, then leaned back to look at her. His scrutiny made her happy. Her Uncle said she was beautiful. What a chrome word. He held her. And put a flower in her hair. Her heart did weird somersaults that left her feeling zingy and strange.  
  
“There will be a day when you wear your own red, Callie,” Joe said cryptically. “I hope you might visit me more, then.”  
  
Thirsty for closeness, she hugged him tightly. She had no idea what his words meant and didn't care. All that mattered was his hand gently stroking the back of her head.  
  
He held her for a long time. Cal fell asleep, lulled by the steady thud of his heart. Outside, the moon scraped over the Wasteland and inside, the body of the baby cooled.


	3. Chapter 3

The tattoos had been a huge bone of contention. 

“What have you done to yourself?”  
  
Cal stood in the doorway, leaning arrogantly on her Barrett. Her face felt chromed in rebellion. Two tattoos, a bullet on each cheek. One for the King Buzzard, the other for the Scag Commander who had so impressed Pa with his armory. Both of them now dead, by Cal’s hand.  
  
Maus, fleeing from the dinner table, managed to overturn a tumbler of milk in her haste to exit. The precious liquid went everywhere. Pa hated waste. There would be a beating later because of it, probably for both of them.

As Maus shoved past her sister, her shredded coat snagged on the Barrett’s scope and the three of them, girls and gun, went down in a clatter.  
  
Pa came barreling across the room. He kicked the Barrett aside and hauled Cal up by her tall collar. Maus scuttled away, successful in her escape. Pa ignored his younger child, focusing only on his rebellious older daughter. His face kept shifting between fury and dismay. “How will I ever find you a husband now?”  
  
Cal pulled free. She was as tall as her father and very strong. “Maybe you shouldn’t.”  
  
“We have alliances to make!”  
  
“The Buzzards still trade with us. As do the Scags. They got over it.”  
  
“After I paid hefty sums in reparations for your ill behavior!”  
  
Cal shrugged, gathering up the Barrett and cradling it like a baby.  
  
“Look at you.” Pa’s voice dripped with disgust. “I raised you wrong.”  
  
“No, you didn’t, Pa. You raised me right. I’ll breed, but I’ll do it on equal standing and with a gun in each hand. I’ll not step to the back of the war party for the sake of a man… or an alliance.”  
  
Her father stabbed a finger at her. “You already have a reputation, Caliber. Two dead husbands in two years. Now you’ve made it so everyone who looks at you will know. My daughter, the husband-killer.”  
  
“Your daughter, who can stand on her own.”  
  
“Who can’t be trusted to obey.” Pa swept around the table and threw himself heavily into his chair. “Who causes more trouble than she’s worth. Are you worth fifteen thousand rounds, Caliber? Because that is what you’ve cost me so far.”  
  
“You sound like the People Eater.”  
  
“Maybe I should send you to him.”  
  
Cal threw her head back and laughed. Light glinted off the bullet crown which stood in for her missing incisor. “That fat smeg? He’s only interested in jerking off to his ledger.”  
  
Her father reached to his plate. He pushed greens into his mouth and chewed grimly.  
  
After a moment, Cal said, “You could always send me to the–“  
  
Pa stopped chewing. “Don’t say it.”  
  
“The Citadel.”  
  
“Absolutely not!” The Bullet Farmer slammed his fist down on the table. Another glass of milk toppled over: his. Father and daughter both noted it. The waste score was now even. There would be no beating tonight.  
  
Cal smirked. “He would take me.”  
  
“You have no idea what you speak.”  
  
“I am clear, full life. It would make sense.”  
  
Her father swallowed his food and scrubbed at his dirty face with his hand.  
  
“I could give him a son.”  
  
“Stop this rubbish talk! We supply the Immortan with bullets, not Wives.” Angry, spitting, he finished, “I swear, Caliber, sometimes I’m not sure if you’re even mine. Your mother was a trade, after all.”  
  
That hurt. Cal went slinking away. In her room, she pondered her newly marked face with eyes the color of corrosion. She had long cheeks already starting to hollow in the middles. A fan of folds nestled against each eye and the corners of her mouth seemed weighted down permanently. Oh, I’m your daughter all right, Pa, she thought, just so much like you, you can’t even see it.

  
_________________________  
  
  
  
Pa hadn’t always been so cruel.  
  
“Why do they call him Daddy?” Cal asked her father one night after Joe and his entourage had left. The warlord had brought an unusual number of War Boys with him this time. They’d tear-assed around the Farm in their buggies, hailing their god-king and V8 and getting the entire place stirred up. Even Cal, just a little girl, was affected by the enthusiasm. She wanted to run to the motor pool and jump on the nose of Pa’s new vehicle. It was the chromiest, shiniest thing she’d ever seen. He called it the Peacemaker.  
  
Pa glowered, set his headdress carefully on its stand.  He was muttering about someone “showing off.” His unkempt hair made wild curling shadows on the wall.  
  
The War Boys' faint cries still drifted through the open windows, growing thinner as the Citadel column rumbled off into the dark: _Daddy. Daddy._  
  
“Why do they call him that, Pa? He can’t be daddy to all of them.”  
  
“Because they love him.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
Pa sighed. He came to Cal and began to comb through her tangled hair with his fingers. “Because he lifts them up.”  
  
“On the platform.”  
  
“Well, that and other ways. He takes them to Valhalla.”  
  
“When?”  
  
“When they die.”  
  
Cal blinked. “Where’s Valhalla, Pa? Past the Salt?”  
  
“No, Caliber.”  
  
“Then where is it?”  
  
“Far away.”  
  
“Can I go there? When I die?”  
  
Her father sucked breath through the bullets that made up half of his teeth. “Caliber, Valhalla isn’t anywhere. It isn’t real.” The Bullet Farmer looked away, face rumpling. “It’s a story from Before.”  
  
Cal considered this for a while. “So Uncle Joe makes them believe a story about a made up place and that’s why they love him and take care of him?”  
  
“Is that so bad?”  
  
“I guess not.”  
  
Her father noticed her agitation. “Do you want to take a ride in the Peacemaker?”  
  
Cal’s face exploded in a smile. “Yes!” Then added, more shyly, “I love you, Pa.”

  
_________________________  
  
  
  
It had been two months since the Chase of the Wives. The Bullet Farm was scavenging on the perimeter of their territory. Three wrecked but salvageable vehicles had already been unearthed. It should have been a good morning but it was not. Cal had already thrown up three times from pain.  
  
She was swishing warm water in her mouth when the forward scout bike pitched over suddenly like it had hit a Buzzard trap. The driver pinwheeled off and broke. Everyone ground to a halt.  
  
“Fuk-ushima,” Cal swore.  
  
Not a Buzzard trap though. They were fifty clicks West from where those rag-wrapped maggots wriggled in the sand. Something else, then. Cal urged her driver to take the Abrams closer. A familiar outline pushed up the sand. She recognized the arch of a wheel well, a squared off long front end.  
  
“Dig it out!” she bellowed.  
  
Sand was flung using helmets, hubcaps and bare hands. More of the vehicle was revealed.  
  
It was the remains of a Valiant Charger.  
  
So much for not rebuilding the Peacemaker.

  
_________________________  
  
  
  
The Citadel War Party’s dust cloud was all she needed to find them.  
  
She drove the truck herself and nearly ran over the rearward guard when she came sliding around the outcrop. Stones thrown by her skid pinged hard off the car bodies. Someone popped a flame thrower in her direction, singeing her braids.  
  
“Bullet Farm!” she cried, but her entrance had been too aggressive and the War Party was already on alert. Two Road Dogs came at her with knives on chains. Cal blocked one with the barrel of her rifle, but the other weapon caught her hard across the chest. The knife blade clanged against her new bandoliers, knocking her down.  
  
“Bullet… Farm!” she croaked from the sand as the Road Dog pitched his shoulder to strike again.  
  
There was a shout and a huge form sailed through the air. Rictus caught the Road Dog in the knees. They went down in a plume of dust. One gear-box sized fist emerged from the cloud only to disappear a split second later, its journey ending in something soft that moaned.  
  
Rictus rose up, and up, and up. His eyes twinkled when he saw Cal on the ground. He offered her his bloody mitt.  She took it and was more or less lifted upright. “What are you doing here, Cal?”  
  
“I want in, Rictus,” she said. This was her chance. “I know you’re going after those milk thieves. I brought ammo. I want to help.”  
  
“I’ll have to ask Dad, you know. He doesn’t like surprises and this was kinda his thing–”  
  
Cal gave him a reassuring smile and a pat on the arm. His simple eyes brightened.  
  
“Do whatever you need to do, Rictus. Just tell him I’m here."  
  
Thirty minutes later, they were still waiting for Rictus. To bide the time, Cal washed her face and tried to repair her singed braids. She was so focused on her toilet activities than she was wholly unaware of Joe standing in the bed of the Mackinaw, watching her through binoculars and humming to himself with satisfaction.  As soon as she put her comb down, the Mack roared to life and trundled to the rear of the column.  
  
“She wants to join the War Party, see?” Rictus boarded her truck, lifting a full ammo can like it was nothing. “Can she, Dad? Please?”  
  
Cal and Joe stared at each other.  
  
She called to the Immortan. “You always liked it when I helped push the carts at Gas Town. You know I shoot chrome. It's boring at the Farm, Uncle.”  
  
Joe’s eyebrows went up, calculating. The bellows behind his head pulsed up and down. Then he spoke.  
  
“Let her in. Since she wants to be out here with us, she can drive in the rear and clean up what we miss."

 

  
_________________________  
  
  
  
The escaped prisoner choked under Cal’s boot. She eased off, but only a little. She could feel the eyes of every man in the War Party on her. Especially the eyes of one.  
  
The milk thief thought he’d cleared the War Party column and had slowed in his frantic pace to escape. Then he’d stumbled directly into Cal’s rearward camp. She’d brought him down with a shot to the ankle, blowing bone chips out onto dirt.  
  
“So let’s try this again,” she said. “From whom did you get it? The milk. Who?”  
  
“Your mother, smeg.”  
  
Cal pointed her pistol at his head, making sure he heard her cock the hammer. “Tell me now, and I’ll let you live. You know women are merciful.”  
  
From under the sand, the man’s hand emerged like a lizard. Shaking, he pointed in the direction of the Mackinaw. “So what? _He_ won’t be merciful.”  
  
“ _I’m_ the one with a boot on your neck, not him. So tell me. And live.”  
  
The thief spat sideways into the sand. “I’ll take that bullet, Farmer bitch. Please and thank ye.”  
  
That decided it. The gun went back into its holster. Cal knelt, putting her knee on the side of the man’s head. He squealed in pain. The unmanly sound made him less. It was easier then to take out her knife and cut his throat.  
  
Blood surged into the dirt. The sound it made coming out surprised her.  
  
“By her deeds she honors him!” one of the War Boys hollered. Cal felt a chill ripple up her spine as the cry was repeated by a few others.  
  
One of the other hostages saw and began to scream. Without prompting, his secrets ran out of him like dirty water.  
  
“We got it,” the Interrogator said. “The milker these scags stole isn’t far away.” He pointed at Cal. “Come do him, too, Farmgirl.”  
  
As Cal prepared to end another life, the clamor around her increased. One of the BlackThumbs began to bang a fender with his wrench.  
  
“Witness!”  
  
_Bang! Bang!_  
  
“She honors V8! She kills for the Immortan!”  
  
_Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!_  
  
“Let her in! Let her in!”

This prisoner she shot.  
  
Joe, standing on the hood of the Mackinaw, stocky and tall with the sun setting in his face, regarded the whole scene. Cal could see his eyes shining under the heavy shadow of his brow. He nodded his head. “Take your vehicle to the middle of the column, Caliber. You’ve earned it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just fixed some inconsistencies with the larger part of the story.  
> Thanks for all the kudos and comments!


	4. Chapter 4

Inside the Citadel, much had changed.  
  
Newly elevated Wretched were teeming in the rough hewn halls. Several times Cal’s party had to stop and wait for clots of them to pass. They appeared to have purpose, but in the chaos, Cal could not tell what it was. By the time the Bullet Farmers reached the stairwell leading to the Vault, she was ready to turn around and leave.  
  
Trap had also come along. “Did it always stink in here this bad?”  
  
“No.” Cal curled her lip. “It did not.”  
  
She left her men at the foot of the stairs and ascended. A hanging chair was parked at the top.  
  
“You’re looking well, Corpus,” she snapped in disgust, stepping into the anteroom.  
  
Corpus Colossus, the Immortan Joe’s only surviving son, lay on a velvet cushion and regarded her with tiny, flat eyes. “Hello, Caliber. You’re in a fine mood today.”  
  
“Have things here degraded so far that you’ve been promoted to Vault guard?”  
  
“There is no need for guards now. And we don’t call it the Vault anymore. We call it the Sanctum.”  
  
“We?” Cal raised her eyebrows.  
  
“What brings you here?”  
  
“I have business to discuss with Furiosa and the Wives.”  
  
“The Sisters,” Corpus corrected.  
  
Cal rolled her eyes.  
  
The little man’s expression was scolding. “I see the deaths of your protectors haven't made you any more respectful.” Corpus toggled a switch next to his hand. Cal caught the chair, eliciting a screech from the small motor. Her shadow fell over him.  
  
“Those are harsh words for a little pillow of a man who can’t even get out of his chair or breathe unassisted,” she snarled in a low voice. Rage over the state of the once-proud Citadel burned in her. “I see no guards, Corpus. I see few War Boys. No Imperators or Mechanics or bloodbags. This anthill houses only Wretched now, doesn't it?”  
  
“There has been attrition,” Corpus admitted. “Many have left.”  
  
“And from the smell, many have died.”  
  
“We have more fertilizer than we can utilize right now, yes.”  
  
Cal snorted. “And are you enjoying this new regime? I see they gave you a fancy cushion but haven’t bothered to dress you.”  
  
“You are cruel today, Caliber.”  
  
She spat on the floor. “I am curious. What is your function now, Corpus? Do you write speeches still? Do you advise them… as you did him?”  
  
Corpus glanced helplessly towards the Vault door. No rescue coming from there yet. His sunken chest heaved up and down. “Yes. They rely on me. My knowledge.”  
  
“It’s the only thing you have, don’t you? No body, no strength, only what’s in your little head.” Up this close, Cal noticed that Corpus had Joe’s eyes. The detail flecked her anger with other feelings. “Do you miss your father, Corpus?”  
  
“Yes, sometimes.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
Nervous words tumbled out of the little man. “You know why. It’s not like how it was. When we rode high and held the Councils. When Dad had it all under control. Now, they talk and talk. It's slow. It’s kinder, but it's slower.”  
  
Cal nodded in satisfaction. “That’s a good way to put it.”  
  
Voices came from within the Vault: soft, feminine tones. Corpus began to compose himself, realizing he was safe. “But I know it will not always be this way. This is a transition period. And, the Sisters and I need each other. I know how things work; they need an experienced adviser. I am content for now.”  
  
“You will always be second in this new regime, you know.” Cal stepped away from the chair, grinding the gears of her emotions.  
  
“I always was second,” Corpus said quietly. “Not everyone wants to be on top, Callie.”  
  
The nickname, coming from him, stung. “Do not call me Callie.”  
  
“Oh, right.” A knowing smile. “I forgot. Only Dad called you that.”  
  
  
  
_________________________________________  
  
  
  
  
“Give the rifle to Callie.”  
  
They were parked on a scab of rock. Down below, perhaps a quarter mile distant, a thin sliver of steam from a blown engine divided earth and sky: the rest of the milk thieves, stranded on the playa.  
  
The Spotter counted eight thieves and one beat-up milker. War Boys idled in the limited shade. The Immortan had stopped them from hurtling over the hill crest in order to reclaim the his property and sate their pent-up blood lust. Now they snapped and punched at each other, biding time while the sniper rifle was brought up.  
  
“I’m going to assume you’re familiar with one of these,” Joe said to Cal.  
  
“Yes.” She saw the gun was a Barrett and relaxed a little. She'd been expecting one of Rictus’ custom-made monstrosities. How he hit anything with those, she’d never know. With experienced hands, she proceeded to set the rifle up on the dented truck hood.  Joe stood close to her, watching with focused intent.  
  
The thieves were in a loose circle, several feet between each man. The milker lay on her back in the full sun, bleeding. A rare vulture was already circling overhead.  
  
Cal pulled back from the sight. “Wait. If I shoot one, the rest will run. I’ll never get them all.”  
  
“I don’t want you to shoot the thieves.”  
  
It took a while for her to understand. “You want me to shoot the milker, Uncle Joe? Why?”  
  
“So I can let my War Boys loose on those thieving filth and not have them worry about damaging the goods.”  
  
“But that’s wasteful!”  
  
Joe chuckled, clapping her on the shoulder. “You sound like your father. I’ll get another one when we return. There’s always two or three begging to be let up. Now, get to it, Callie.”  
  
He took his hand away while she aimed. She was so nervous, she missed. Joe grunted. Cal re-aimed quickly. Her second shot blew the milker over.  
  
War Boys charged, screaming.  
  
As the panicking thieves scattered, Joe patted Cal on the shoulder again. His heavy hand trailed down her back to rest at her waist for a few seconds too long. She froze to the spot as his labored breathing took on an even weightier tone. When she didn’t move, he huffed into his mask and retired to his vehicle.  
  
Cal watched the carnage unfold below and wondered if she’d made the right decision.  
  
  
  
  
__________________________  
  
  
It was hard to hold the tears back. Her father stood with his arms folded while she sat at the table.  
  
“You want to be useful?” Pa’s voice was hard. “Do your maths. If you want to learn how to run the Farm, you need math. What good is a munitions expert who can’t tell where her shots will land?”  
  
Cal wanted to tell him that she had a headache from staring at the incomprehensible load calculation tables. She wanted to tell him of her fear that she would not be able to learn. She wanted to tell Pa about the Powder Boy who’d grabbed her the other night and done things to her, but she fancied the Boy a little and knew Pa would kill him. Her tongue cleaved to the roof of her mouth as the tears leaked from the corners of her eyes.  
  
Her father shook his head. “Figure it out. Or else it will be back to Miss Giddy for schooling. I know how much you liked that.”  
  
Cal listened to Pa’s steps fade away down the corridor and despaired.  
  
Maus came in an hour later. She smelled of fresh air, and had a sprig of green tucked over her ear. Without words, she took the manual from Cal and plotted a quick calculation, writing it out in a simpler way than Pa had. Cal’s mouth dropped open. It made sense now.  
  
“How did you know how to do that?”  
  
Maus, still yet a girl while Cal hurtled towards her womanhood, smiled with tired wisdom. “Remember when Pa sent us for lessons at the Citadel last winter? While you were pouting and being difficult, I was paying attention.”  
  
  
  
___________________________________  
  
  
  
“Flares up! Citadel requesting support! Ready the pursuit vehicles!”  
  
The cries echoed over the Bullet Farm, catching Cal’s ear as she oversaw the installation of a new set of bits on their main grinder. The operator scrambled away when she grabbed the door handle and jumped up on the running board, then clambered with sure hands and feet to the roof of the cab. Shielding her eyes with her hands, she squinted into the morning sun. The red and yellow smoke was still visible, shredding in the wind. A faint dust cloud roiled below.  
  
“Buzzards?” she called to the lookout in the nearest sniper nest.  
  
The female sniper put her telescope down and hollered back. “Yes, but something else! Looks like Immortan’s War Rig. Off course and under attack!”  
  
“By the V8!” Cal leaped from the cab, landing hard in the dirt. She went sprinting towards the garage where cars were already thundering to life.  
  
Her father was settling into the Peacemaker as she pelted in. She came up to the side, gripping the roll cage with anxious hands. “Pa. Let me come.”  
  
He didn’t bother to look at her. “Absolutely not, Caliber.”  
  
“But, Pa!”  
  
Pa’s Imperator and gunners more or less crawled over her to take their places. Cal felt stepped on and small. She jammed the toe of her boot in the open chassis and hopped up. Her head and her father’s were level now. They pointed their long faces at each other.  
  
“Go back to the mine. Mind things while I’m gone.” Pa pulled down his goggles.  
  
“I want to come!”  
  
Frantic yelling came from the opening of the garage. A lesser Imperator cried, “Lookout relay! Doof Wagon and Gigahorse sighted. This is not a drill! Repeat, Doof Wagon and Gigahorse confirmed on the move!” 

Cal bounced on the chassis, letting her frustration show. “Pa, I can take the FourSquare. It’s got fresh mortars. We can provide rear support. Whatever’s going on, I won’t get in the middle of it.”  
  
There was a split second where her father looked like he might relent. Cal was already turning in the direction of the slender FourSquare when the next relay stopped the entire garage in its tracks.  
  
“Updaaaaaaaate! Multiple vehicles sighted in attack formation! Immortan Joe’s armada is deployed! Repeat: Entire Citadel armada deployed!”  
  
“Good Christ, he’s finally gone out of his mind,” her father muttered.  
  
Hearing this, Cal tried not to panic. “Pa–“  
  
Her father’s gloved hand grabbed her chin. His murky green eyes bored into hers. Cal saw something dire in them that scared her. “Caliber. I need you here. This is going to be an expensive endeavor. I feel it. You remember what happened when he decided he needed two Cadillacs instead of one for the Gigahorse? He only deployed half the armada that time and still used up over twenty thousand rounds fighting for those ridiculous cars. Double the production line capacities. Watch over your sister. And don’t leave the Farm until I return.”  
  
Then he shoved her off the Peacemaker, kicking the driver’s chair. “Hut!”  
  
They roared out.  
  
  
  
  
_____________________________  
  
  
Both the track vehicles needed to be running for the plan to work.  
  
The scavenged Valiant body had been cut. The track and roll cage had been pulled straight. It wasn’t the golden chariot of her childhood, but it would do.  
  
Across the mine garage, the Abrams sulked, leaking oil. As long as it made it to the Citadel grounds, that would be close enough. Assuming everything went right, they wouldn’t need to bring it back.  
  
Trap sidled up to her. “You’re really going to try this, aren’t you?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Cal, I don’t think–“  
  
Cal turned on him, fierce from desperation and pain. “I don’t care what you think, Trap. We’re moving forward. Like Joe always wanted. We’re moving forward and up and we’re going to take back the Citadel.”


	5. Chapter 5

She ended up at the Citadel on the bizarre night when it rained. Kamacrazee, she remembered her Powder Boy saying, then the car slid left and right, tilted at an impossible angle then rolled.  
  
Cal woke to the sensation of wetness smacking her face. It took her a long time to figure out that it was rain. It burned the cut in her scalp. In the wrecked buggy, her Powder Boy bubbled the last of his life from between bloodied lips. The steering column protruded from between his shoulder blades like a spent thunderstick.  
  
Not too far away, lights blinked in the dark at the end of the world: Citadel.  
  
She began to stagger towards it.  
  
When she announced herself to the Guard Dogs, they laughed, believing her a Wretch. Cal pointed to the flaming skull emblem on her sodden belt.  
  
“Must have stolen it from a dead War Boy.” The nearest guard snatched at the emblem, catching the chain and ripping it free. “We’ll show you what we do to thieves.”  
  
Outraged, Cal drew her pistol. It proved a terrible idea. She was tackled from several directions, going down under multiple male bodies. Something crunched in her shoulder. Her scream of agony ripped from her lungs to fill the space between the tall, sandstone towers.  
  
“Get off her!”  
  
The weight on her back vanished. She was lifted – roughly, by the neck – and spun. The lights at the top of the Citadel whirled as a giant shape filled her vision.  
  
Rictus.  
  
He said, “Cal, what are you doing here?”  
  
“Accident,” she managed, then passed out.  
  
  
  
  
_____________________________________  
  
  
When she came to, she was high up. Very high. There was a window, with real glass. Outside, the crop watering cranes on the top of the Garage Tower turned slowly, yellow signal lights flashing. Cal realized she was parallel with them.  
  
Someone was holding her hand. Hard.  
  
“Owww,” she said.  
  
“Stop squeezing her hand like a stupid feral,” Joe's Organic Mechanic chastised Rictus.  
  
Cal blinked her vision into focus. She lay on a metal table. Her wet outer clothes had been removed, leaving her to feel exposed in only light trousers and her tunic. Rictus was mouth-breathing next to her, his dull face a half-painted canvas of concern. Off to the side, the Organic scratched his head with the handle of a scalpel. She saw no one else and was vaguely disappointed.  
  
The doctor made to come near. “Rictus, get out of the way. I need to look her over.”  
  
Rictus' knees cracked against the underside of the table as he stood, jolting both it and Cal. Pain blasted up from her shoulder. Her wail sailed out the open door and down the hall.  
  
“Get out, Rictus!” The Organic was snarling now. “You’re doing more harm than good.”  
  
“But I _found_ her!”  
  
Cal moaned while an argument ensued over her head. She was about to pass out again when everything went still and silent.  
  
A heavy step and one long, slow hiss of mechanical exhalation.  
  
“Hi, Dad,” Rictus said, cheerful.  
  
Mask askew and hair wild, the warlord loomed over her.  Cal felt a mixture of fright and anticipation thread through her. The feeling was confusing.  
  
Joe demanded, “Organic. Explanation.”  
  
“Turned up on the doorstep, boss. Your boy brought her up. Says he knows her.”  
  
“He does. This is Kalashnikov’s elder daughter.”  
  
“The troublemaker?”  
  
The warlord she thought of as Uncle Joe softened a little. “The very one.”  
  
“Am _I_ in trouble, Dad? For bringing her up?”  
  
“No, Rictus.” Joe patted his son on his meaty shoulder. “You did the right thing. But leave us now. The Organic needs space to do his job.”  
  
The giant lingered by the door for a few moments, then drifted off.  
  
Joe returned to the table side, the Organic close behind, peering over his broad shoulders.  Cal couldn’t tell if Joe’s heavy-lidded expression was predatory or just sleepy. She began to tremble.  
  
The Organic spoke. “Rictus said she told him ‘accident.’ Cuts and bruises, mostly. Dislocated shoulder’s the worst of it. I’ll need to fix that straight away.”  
  
Circling, the warlord inspected her here and there with a casual hand. Above his mask, his eyes were brightening. “How many others know she's here?”  
  
“Not many. Maybe three. Night shift guards.”  
  
A grunt.  Joe tilted his head and regarded Cal, who was desperately trying to hide her pain. “Leave us for a moment, Organic. Callie and I need to have a little talk.”  
  
When the door thumped shut, the deadness of the room pressed down on Cal. Joe began to wipe her bloody face with a rag. “A rainstorm from God and an angel at a god’s doorstep,” he murmured. His fingers brushed her wet hair away from her neck and touched right where the Powder Boy had sucked on her throat. Must have left a mark, she thought, and was ashamed.  
  
“Let me guess,” he said, not ungentle. “Joyride with a boy?”  
  
She nodded.  
  
“What happened to him?”  
  
“Impaled… on the steering column. Wheel came off.”  
  
“And you left him there?”  
  
She felt tears threaten but pressed them back. “I couldn’t help him.”  
  
Joe made an approving sound. “Always practical, my Callie, aren’t you?”  
  
“Please don’t tell Pa,” Cal stammered. “He’ll kill me.”  
  
The Immortan put the rag away and regarded her, thumbs hooked in his belt. “I think we’ll keep this between us. It’s a small debt you can settle later. Fair enough, yes?”  
  
“I guess,” she said.  
  
’When the time comes, I’m sure you’ll know how to repay me.”  
  
His voice crawled up her spine like a lizard, tickling, sinuous. She remembered the last time she’d been alone with him, in the Mackinaw, driving to Gas Town. How he had touched her shoulder. This was similar, but there was a edge to it. A shiver gripped her and she yelped in pain.  
  
“Shhhhhhh.” Joe laid a finger over her lips. As he took it away, his touch drifted light over her cheek and chin. “I’ll bring the Organic back in now and we’ll fix your shoulder. You’ll feel better then.”  
  
As it was, she felt terrible after the Organic came back. He tried twice to reduce her shoulder but her Farm-tough muscles had spasmed and he was not strong enough to do it by himself. In the end, they had to enlist Rictus to pull her in one direction while the Organic tugged her arm in another. Joe settled for muffling her howls by pressing her face into his chest.  
  
“Good girl!” Joe crowed once the shoulder reset with a sound like a muffled gunshot. “Proud of you, Callie. What a brave girl you are.”  
  
She was redressed and packed into the morning’s supply run vehicle. The Citadel Imperator had to work hard to distract her father long enough to give her time to slip into her quarters unseen.  
  
In her bed, Cal laid awake a long time, hurting but grateful.  She’d been patched up chrome and she was fairly sure Pa would never discover her reckless disobedience.  
  
One thing was certain, though.  
  
The debt she now owed Joe was anything but small.  
  
  
  
  
__________________________________  
  
  
Cal hated herself for what she was about to do.  
  
From an early age, she and her sister had been taught that to owe someone something was to be owned by that thing until it was paid square. Pa had been religious about keeping a clean slate. The Bullet Farm traded fair and even, never over, but never under, either.  
  
As the Wives – the Sisters – came out of the Sanctum to greet her, all she could think of was, “Gas Town owns me right now.”  
  
The four young women paused in the doorway.

“You,” Toast growled.  
  
“Toast! You promised,” Capable chided.  
  
The small woman swung around them in a wide loop, heading for an interior door which led to what formerly had been a bunkhouse bedroom. “I can’t do this. I forfeit my vote.”  
  
Cheedo, still mostly a child, trailed after her. “But then we are only four. If there is a tie, we have no one to break it.”  
  
“Then don’t end up in a tie.” Toast disappeared, slamming the door. The door was new. Over the last few years, as his disease progressed, Joe had become increasingly short tempered and irrational from pain. After one particularly impotent fit of rage, he’d demanded all the interior doors in the Vault be removed. “So they can’t fucking hide,” he’d explained in a snarl to Cal as they sat together on the bumper of a claw truck, watching a freshly-raided outpost burn to the ground.  
  
“I don’t understand her.” Cheedo returned to them, frowning. “You’ve always been kind to her. To all of us.”  
  
The Dag and Capable nodded and smiled in agreement.  
  
There was a snort. Furiosa, standing in the shadows by the door, now levered herself off the wall, grim. “Toast didn’t tell you?”  
  
The three girls gave the former Imperator puzzled looks.  
  
Furiosa faced Cal.  “She’s the one who brought Toast here, you know. From the Bullet Farm.”  
  
  
  
  
________________________________  
  
  
Whenever Joe sent his Imperators to look for Wives, they always made the same circuit: Gas Town first, then the Bullet Farm, before heading out into the Wastes. Neither town had a breeding program, but both sported heavy populations of fighters kept strong by the Citadel’s milk and produce. Well-fed fighters did more than just fight. They bred.  
  
It has been so for years and Cal figured it would always be so.  
  
Stationed in her supervisor’s garret overlooking the open mine, Cal caught the mirror flash signaling a search party was on its way. She put her stylus down – _schlanger_ -eating load calculations again – and leaned on the windowsill.  
  
Ever since she was little, she had enjoyed the pomp and circumstance that accompanied a Wife-search. Joe always sent the most shine of his vehicles, looking to impress and, in some cases, intimidate.  
  
Word on the dust was a War Rig drove the Fury Road today. She had heard of this special monster, but in her visits to the Citadel, had not been able to catch a glimpse. Her attention had been required – demanded – elsewhere.  
  
She pulled up her skirts and sat down on the sill, ignoring the workers below who saluted her.  
  
The Rig came rumbling. Shrouded in a plume of churned dust, it pulled up to the Farm gates and honked once, requesting entry. Vast and dark, covered in spikes, with battle cabs fore and aft. Beautiful. It lurched on its suspension, mechanically alive and resisting the will of its Imperator. War Boys ran along its back, clambering, leaping, hunkering.  
  
The gates were hauled aside. The War Boys saluted Holy Vee Eight as the Rig gave a jolt, anxious to be free of its brakes.  
  
Cal grabbed her binoculars. The massive vehicle rumbled inside, dwarfing the nearest dump truck. She was surprised when the long-nosed cab swung round in a wide arc. Brow wrinkling, she tried to guess what the driver was going to do. Usually, vehicles pulled straight in and waited to be met. When it was time to leave, they would circle back to the gate via the Farm’s raised perimeter roadway.  
  
This Rig, though. This Rig stopped with its nose facing the gates, then began to _back up into its prescribed space_. The cab and the tanker made various narrow angles to each other. With a final lurch, it came to rest, self-satisfied and gigantic.  
  
Now _that_ was chrome.  
  
The cab door opened. Pa’s Head Imperator, forehead shining like carbon steel, bowed and saluted the driver.  
  
A woman stepped out, wheel in hand.  
  
Cal put her binoculars down, stunned.  
  
  
  
  
  
__________________________________  
  
  
“Women,” Pa said as he inspected the bullets coming off the foundry line, “do not sit on Council.”  
  
“Bollocks, Pa! I saw Jesbit Irondog with the rest of the Council on the Citadel platform last time we were there.”  
  
Cal was seventeen and bored out of her mind. Her father had recently “rewarded” her with the numbing responsibility of monitoring the foundry, the hottest, loudest part of the Farm. There was nothing but dirty laborers slinging lead billets into wire presses and mostly deaf Casting Masters bellowing over the clang of machinery. No Powder Boys to talk to or look at. Just endless bullets, burying her alive.  
  
“Pa, if that wreckage can sit on Council, then so can I.”  
  
“That wreckage,” her father said, “has killed over a dozen men with her own hands.”  
  
He tossed a bullet at her. Cal caught it on reflex, felt the imperfection in the copper jacket without even looking, then threw it over her shoulder into the slag pile.  
  
Pa told her, “You’re good at this, Cal. It suits you. You don’t want to be like Jesbit Irondog. She’s a half-tamed feral who barely rates as a woman.”  
  
“I’ll decide who I want to be like,” Cal muttered.  
  
The machines banged and clanked all around them, churning out little piles of gleaming death. As she followed behind her father, Cal mused about what he said about Jesbit. A dozen men seemed like nothing to brag about. That wog was half Cal’s size and twice her age. Scooping her hands into a barrel full of slender, pointed rounds, Cal let the cool bullets slip between her fingers. Her lips curled in thought. Give me my AK and I’ll clap a dozen men in sixty seconds. I’ll have a hundred to my name by the time I’m twenty.  
  
“Pa,” she tried again, this time more reasonable. “I can do more. Anybody can do this. Give the foundry to Maus.”  
  
“Maus has the Powder Mill, now. She can’t do both.”  
  
“But Pa, this is so boring!”  
  
Her father straightened his long gloves. “There are worse things in life than being bored, Caliber.”  
  
As it turned out, he was absolutely right.


	6. Chapter 6

The little boy was a giant. She had never seen a boy so big.  
  
He stood easily on the running board of the approaching car. Riding high on tall shocks, headlights framed by dozens of fingerbones, the Citadel vehicle rolled up to where Cal stood with her family. The giant boy hopped down before the car was fully stopped.  
  
“Rictus! Be careful!” the driver bellowed, leaning out the window. Cal saw a man about her father’s age, with graying brown hair and piercing eyes. He wore a respirator.  
  
The boy – Rictus – turned around and looked up. “Sorry, Dad.”  
  
The engine coughed and died. Cal’s ears rang as the silence washed in. The men – her father and his lieutenants with their guns crossed over their backs – saluted the driver. The driver noticed Cal and her mother. His sharp stare drilled into them.  
  
“And what have we here?”  
  
Cal’s mother made a small, animal noise in her throat when he got out of the car to approach.  The giant boy trailed behind, mimicking his father’s regal posture.  
  
“You didn’t tell me you had another one, Kalashnikov,” the driver said, inspecting the baby in the skinny woman's arms.  
  
“It’s a girl,” Pa replied carelessly.  
  
“Her name is Mauser,” Cal told the driver, excited about her new sister and anxious to be part of the conversation.  
  
The piercing eyes ticked down to her. Crouching, the man came to her level, respirator sucking air in and hissing it out. “And you must be Caliber.”  
  
She nodded. Her mother edged away. The boy stepped in to her place, nearly filling it. “Caliber.” His inflection matched his father’s.  
  
Cal noted that all the men seemed to be watching her. It made her feel important. A bold and brave little girl, born on a tarp in the back of a half-track, Cal offered these two strangers her square-toothed smile. “Who are you?”  
  
The man chuckled into his respirator. He indicated the giant boy with a wave of his hand. “This is… your cousin, Rictus. And I’m your Uncle Joe.”  
  
  
  
  
____________________________________

  
Rictus didn’t know what a toy was.  
  
He and Cal had been left in the shade cast by a downed plane. Underneath the wing, the sand was cool and almost damp. From her bag, Cal pulled several dirty stuffed toys and arranged them in the dirt between her and Rictus. Behind them, the men were inspecting the tall car as well as several other massive vehicles which had since arrived. The stink of gas and hot brakes was everywhere.  
  
“Let’s play animals,” she told her cousin.  
  
Rictus picked up one of the toys. He turned it in spatulate hands. “What is it?”  
  
“It’s called a ‘kitty’,” Cal said.  
  
Rictus seemed baffled. He peered into the toy’s dull plastic eyes and flopped its legs back and forth. “What does it do?”  
  
“It doesn’t do… anything. You play with it. Here, like this.” Cal took the toy and made it walk across the sand, meowing as her mother told her kitties did. Rictus watched intently.  
  
“Is it alive?”  
  
“No, silly. It’s a _toy_.”  
  
“Toy,” Rictus said.  
  
“Here.” Cal thrust the stuffed cat back at him and took up one her Pa called a “bear.” This one she made walk heavily back and forth between their crossed legs, grunting along with the steps.  
  
Rictus grabbed it from her. “I like this one! What is it?”  
  
“Bear.”  
  
“Bear.” Rictus walked the bear to Cal’s toy and touched the noses together. “Bear likes kitty.”  
  
Cal giggled and made her toy nuzzle back. “Kitty likes bear.”  
  
They played animals for at least an hour, while the huge vehicles did windsprints around the crashed plane. The men were wholly focused on the machines. When they stopped to let the engines cool, Cal heard her mother weeping. She was huddled against the scratched fuselage, muffling her sobs against baby Mauser. Cal ignored her; Ma wept almost constantly. This was nothing new.  
  
When it was time to leave, Rictus threw a fit. He refused to give up the bear and wrapped his arms around Cal, howling. Pa and Uncle Joe had to peel him off her. The boy was deposited roughly by his father into the cab of the tall car, with ‘bear’ crushed in one fist. Cal, bruised and sniffling, watched one of her only possessions disappear into the sizzling horizon. She spent the ride back to the Farm quietly hiccuping her upset into her mother’s skirts.  
  
A week later, a Citadel messenger brought a package. It was wrapped in thin, pale leather and tied with some kind of sinew. Her mother hissed with distaste and refused to touch it. Pa undid the knots so Cal could see what was inside.  She recognized the toy from her single picture book as a dog. What fur the one-eyed dog had was curly and soft.  
  
She hugged the gift to her chest.  
  
Her father said, “I’ll let Uncle Joe know you like it.”  
  
  
  
  
___________________________________  
  
  
It was very early morning. A ribbon of purple-pink light decorated the sleeping sky. The light cast faint shadows in the twin parallel tracks disrupting the dirt which took its rest before the mountains.  
  
Cal opened the hatch of the Abrams and stood tall. The wind caught her dark hair, streaming it out behind her. In her chest, her heart beat wildly; the power of the resurrected tank was beyond anything she had ever thought to experience.  
  
The Abrams was hers and hers alone. She had found it. She had scrounged and bartered and traded until she’d gathered the parts with which to repair it. Its gears and rivets were stained with the blood of volunteers and slaves alike. Along its sloping front, on either side of the main gun, twin flaming skulls screamed promises of crushing death. A gift from her warlord.  
  
Pa pulled up next to them, the Peacemaker snarling with a re-built engine.  
  
“Race, old man?” Cal called.  
  
Her father’s driver tapped the accelerator, shooting the Peacemaker forward a short distance and kicking up a tall rooster tail of dirt. Most of it blew into Cal’s face. She coughed and brushed it away, various medals of accomplishment tinkling on her breast as she did so.  
  
“Pride goeth before a fall, Caliber,” her father said as they drew abreast again.  
  
“I think you’re just afraid I’ll beat you.”  
  
She could see Pa trying hard to suppress a smile. It was so rare for any of them to smile these days. “You’ll lose.”  
  
She grinned widely. “Try me.”  
  
With an ear-splitting roar, both machines opened their throttles and took off.  
  
Cal lost handily, but didn’t care. The fact they were both smiling was a win.  
  
  
  
  
___________________________________  
  
  
Trap, picking at the last of the stale bread, sighed miserably. The very sound of it ground against Cal’s soul.  
  
“What now?”  
  
“I miss how it was.”  
  
She got up from the table, not doing much to hide her eyerolling from the Polecat. “You miss sneaking around? Risking being skinned alive if you were caught with me?”  
  
Trap frowned. “It made it fun.”  
  
Cal leaned on the windowsill. Dust, seeping in through the seals, was gritty under her palms. So much maintenance needing doing, but without fear of being tortured by Pa, it was hard to motivate the slaves. “This place is falling apart.”  
  
She heard Trap come up behind her. On instinct, her entire body went rigid, expecting something other than his careful hands at her waist. He pressed his nose to the back of her head and just stood there, not moving, breathing quietly.  
  
Cal closed her eyes to the memories of the hissing respirator. So many times, like this, wheezing out the price of her ambition into her ear.  
  
Trap felt her tension but did not understand it. He said, “I’m worried about you, Cal.”  
  
She ignored his concern. “Never mind me. Worry about the world.”

 

 

____________________________________  
  
  
Joe’s War Boys burned the Milk Thieves’ bodies. The bonfire had been a knot of celebratory chaos in the still vacuum of the desert. Figures leapt over the flames, screaming for Valhalla and praising the Immortan, dirtbikes skidded through the camp, and the _braaaappppp_ of an automatic pistol being fired at the stars startled a single, croaking crow from its nighttime roost.  
  
Now, with the flames burning low and the silence laying back down on the sands, the temperature fell and so did Cal’s spirits.  
  
A War Boy had snatched her up a few hours earlier, eyes hot from murdering. He told her she was so chrome for her shooting, how she had honored V8 and the Immortan, how he’d never seen a girl so shine. Cal, swept away by his breathless compliments, had let the Boy take her to his Wrecker. What they did was clumsy and could not be undone. When it was over, she wrapped her blanket around her shoulders and took her leave, ignoring his pleas to stay.  
  
Sore and disappointed, she wove amongst the vehicles, sensing other eyes on her. In the cookery tent, muffled yelps told her the cooks were being roughly used. It would not be safe to sleep in the camp proper. The troops were too riled. Still, it hurt to consider leaving just to be safe.  
  
She wanted so very badly to belong.  
  
Sentries grunted their interest as she passed.  
  
At the head of the pack, stationed with the best view of the plain, was the Mackinaw. Its prow pointed off into the dark blue like a promise of accomplishment. Inside, yellow lights burned. Cal saw a profile topped with an arc of long hair; Uncle Joe, still awake.  
  
The Mackinaw guards gave her slightly more polite attention than the sentries, but even they chuckled behind their hands when she stepped up on the running board to tap on the window.  
  
Joe rubbed condensation off the glass. Cal was surprised to see him with his mask off. He had a pair of spectacles balanced on his nose and a book in his hand. With a nod to his right, Joe indicated she should come around to the other side.  
  
The door hissed open.  
  
“Get in, shut it quickly.”  
  
This compartment of the Mack was pressurized. A generator vibrated quietly under the floorboards. Cal took a deep breath of clean, filtered air and felt her head swim a little.  
  
“What’s the matter, child? It’s late and you should be sleeping.”  
  
She’d never seen her uncle's entire face. Typically, he always wore some kind of scrubber, even when just sitting in Pa’s office, drinking with her father late into the night. Age was beginning to pull at Joe’s cheeks but his strong features fought against it. Suddenly shy, Cal stayed by the door. Her voice came out smaller than she expected. “It’s cold. I don’t want to make rear camp.”  
  
Joe put down his book and took off his glasses. “Why not?”  
  
She hesitated for a moment, then let it spill. “I don’t want to be alone.”  
  
“Understandable.” Joe held out his hand. “Come here; sit with me while I read.”  
  
A hundred things went crashing through her as she regarded his offered palm. She thought of her debt, still outstanding. She thought of how his hand had felt when he'd touched her at the small of her back earlier that day. She thought of the War Boy, and her disappointment.  
  
He beckoned with his fingers, just a small twitch, but enough to unstick her.  
  
She sat down next to him. He put his arm around her. Warm and dense, he was the polar opposite of the rangy creature with whom she had just shared her maidenhead. Suddenly, that seemed like a terrible waste. Joe’s armor was off and it was easy to get close. Cal tucked her legs up on the seat and rested her head against his shoulder. He sighed deeply, put his glasses back on and went back to his book.  
  
Cal didn’t even try to read along. All the words did was swim.  
  
He read a few pages more then thumped the book closed. With a grunt, he turned and put both arms around her. She wore an asymmetrical tunic with different length sleeves. His fingers found the bare skin on the short-sleeved side and made random patterns.  
  
“How is your shoulder?” he asked, gentle.  
  
It took her a couple tries to answer. While she was thrilled he cared to ask after her injury, her tongue had become dry leather. “Better. Still weak. I tried to throw a thunderstick today but it was too heavy. I missed.”  
  
“I know. I saw you.”  
  
“You did?”  
  
“I watched you all day, Callie.” Joe tightened his arms. She let her legs rest against the hard muscle of his thigh. “With practice, you’ll get better.”  
  
“There’s no one to practice with at the Farm. Just Powder Boys, and Pa doesn’t want me frat- frat– oh, I don’t know the word he used.”  
  
“Fraternizing?”  
  
“Yes, that.”  
  
Joe reached up to stroke her head. “Practice alone, then. Powder Boys are beneath you, my dear.” He turned her face up to his, a smile curving his lips. It was the first time Cal had ever seen his smile. “You are my Brother-in-Arms’ elder daughter. Today, you killed two men and shed blood for V8 and for me. I am grateful.”  
  
She sat up straighter, body brushing against his as she did so. A little shudder went through him.  
  
She said, “I’m grateful, too. For how you helped me that night I got hurt. You never told Pa about what I did.”  
  
“Anything for my Callie,” Joe murmured, his heavy eyelids still shadowed with war paint. He leaned forward and planted a light kiss on her forehead. Cal trembled as the bruised area between her legs grew warm. This was no War Boy. This was not even her “uncle.” This was the man from whom all the Wastelands cowered in fear: the Immortan.  
  
In that moment, she understood his power.  
  
When she tried to kiss his palm, Joe tightened his fingers, stopping her. In the growing fan of wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, there was a promise.  
  
“You repaid some of your debt to me today,” he rumbled, tone low and intimate. It made the wounded part of her ache even more. “But enough adventure for now, child. You may sleep up in the front cab. Take your blanket. Go.”  
  
Cal went, dazzled.  
  
It had not been a rejection.  
  
  
  
  
__________________________________

  
It was the anniversary of the taking of the Citadel and the sisters were eavesdropping.  
  
Maus and Cal lay on their bellies, noses pinched against the dust in the vent. Through a wall grille in Pa’s office, they were able to watch the men seated inside.  
  
Pa was stretched out in his chair, relaxed in a way his two girls rarely saw. He was flipping a .50 cal shell between his fingers. The People Eater had brought a special, wheeled seat and was rolling himself forward and back with his good foot. Joe, being very much the Immortan, reclined on the only couch, one leg up, the other sprawled out to the side. He had a tumbler of amber liquor in his hand and was tapping it against his metal codpiece. _Tink. Tink._  
  
They were all drunk.  
  
“Bullet Farm, Kalashnikov, my brother.” Joe was expansive with good humor. “How long has it been since that day, when we took the Citadel from those scavenger dogs?  
  
“Nineteen years,” Pa responded.

“Ahhh!” Joe fixed his gaze on the People Eater. “And you, my friend, my lord of Gas Town.  Do you remember when you only had a few flamers and one Polecat truck?”  
  
Pa added, “And when you fit in a normal sized chair?”  
  
People Eater cast a testy glance at Pa. He smoothed his expression before responding to Joe. “Those were early days. Exciting days. Now we are wealthy. Our garages, larders and warehouses are full. Our ranks are strong.”  
  
Pa wasn’t finished. “Which is good, since you now need people to carry you around.”  
  
There was cruel laughter. The People Eater looked down at his ledger and fiddled with his false nose.  
  
Joe turned to Pa. “I’ve cages full of half-life criminals I need dealt with, Kalashnikov. Thieves. Saboteurs. A few trespassers. Some have information I think we could use. Get your torture things ready. The next Council will be a busy one.”  
  
Cal’s ribs were beginning to hurt. She indicated to Maus that enough was enough. Boring man talk, nothing more. They lifted themselves up, silent as sand rats, when Pa said, “That reminds me. Caliber wants to sit on Council.  
  
Immediately, Cal was flat on her belly again, certain the pounding of her heart would be heard through the vent.  
  
“Preposterous!” the People Eater responded.  
  
“She’s pressing the issue every chance she gets.”  
  
“Let her. That’s what women do. They nag.”  
  
Joe’s glass _tinked_ one last time against his crotch. “My brother, who would you send as proxy, if the event you were unable to attend?”  
  
Pa answered quickly. “Tavor.”  
  
The People Eater snorted. His nose came loose and thunked into the gutter of his ledger.  
  
Cal and Maus clapped their hands over their mouths, stifling hysteria.  
  
“For fuck’s sake!” Joe’s slurring bellow shocked the laughter right out of them. At the Bullet Farm, no one took V8 in vain and absolutely no one said ‘fuck’. The tone of the room darkened. The People Eater replaced his nose with fat, shaking fingers. Maus scooted up against Cal, scared. Riveted by the scene, they held hands.  
  
Joe aimed an unsteady finger at Pa. “Tavor is less than capable, shall I say? Have you forgotten the incident with the Centurion?”

"I have not,” Pa replied. No one had, not even Cal and Maus, who had been very young at the time. The Centurion had been a Northern Territory miracle, an perfectly preserved relic dragged down by a tribe who promised to make it come alive in return for alliance and water. Its monstrous engine, hammering with power beneath massive plates of armor, had thrummed with Cal's heart, thrilling her more than any V8 ever had. The dread clacking of the turret as the long gun was aimed out into the Waste still rang in her head sometimes, raising gooseflesh every time. Firing it had been her father's master gunner's idea. Tavor said the shells inside appeared sound. 

"At least we all had enough sense to take cover," Joe growled. "If we hadn't, the explosion from that breech failure would have killed every last one of us."

"Took ten tons of dirt to fill the crater," the People Eater groused. "What pieces of it we recovered weren't worth the cost of the two diggers we lost in the process."

Pa fiddled with his shell. "Tavor never denied it was a costly error.”

Joe poured more liquor into his glass. “I will not accept a man who doesn't know his munitions as your proxy, Kalashnikov.”  
  
Tense silence fell over the room.  
  
After thirty heartbeats or so, Joe heaved himself up. “I should let you know,” he said slowly, “that Caliber joined the War Party I took out after those thieving dogs broke into the holding pens and made it out with a milker.”  
  
“She did what?” Pa came half out of his chair. The .50 cal shell clinked to the floor.  
  
Joe waved his glass at him, eyes fixed on the liquor spinning round, not the startled Bullet Farmer. “She caught up with us just outside the canyon foothills. Assisted in a capture and showed no hesitation doing what needed to be done. Her sniping skills are not half bad, brother. She conducted herself well afterwards. An asset, overall.” He cleared his throat. “I would have her again.”  
  
The noise the People Eater made could have been a cough, or it could have been laughter.  
  
Cal saw her father’s knuckles were white. “What are you saying?”  
  
The Immortan took a deep, wheezing breath. He pushed up his mask and swallowed the remainder of his drink. Then he snapped the fierce teeth back into place and thrust the leering maw in Pa’s direction. His tone was firm. “I think you should let her attend. She can stand in the back with Rictus. He’ll make sure she behaves. Maybe she’ll learn something.”  
  
The People Eater slapped his ledger closed and belched.  
  
“As you wish, Immortan,” Pa said quietly.  
  
Cal was too excited to notice the sadness in her sister’s expression as they slipped out of the vent.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Little tie in to Sweetness and Light (http://archiveofourown.org/works/3971269) which started the whole "Toast is from the Bullet Farm" idea. Couldn't resist tying it in since I'd been toying with a similar idea. 
> 
> Go read ssstrychnine's stuff, it's great.

“I’ve come to request a line of credit.”  
  
“Credit?” Furiosa was dubious.  
  
Cal fiddled with her now-invalid insignia. “Fine. I’ve come to cash in that favor.”  
  
The Sisters traded knowing glances. No one, including Furiosa, had forgotten what Cal had done for Angharad that time when she took ill.  
  
“I see.” Furiosa was still healing from the injuries incurred during the Chase. Cal thought she looked weak. Her voice, however, was steady. “What is it you need?”  
  
“I need an advance on a food and water trade.”  
  
“Whatever for?”  
  
“I owe a debt to Gas Town. Bullet Farm’s into them for fuel. Since the Citadel has reduced its demand for munitions, my people are now underfed and thirsty. Production capacity is down. But we still need guzz, and I’ve come up short.”  
  
“So why is this our problem?”  
  
Cal turned to Capable. “Because I’m being threatened. If Gas Town moves to settle by force, the Farm may not be able to adequately defend.” She looked around the room at the debris, both animate and inanimate, of Joe’s old world. “Do you want another warlord? If Gas Town can assume control of the Bullet Farm, what’s to stop them from coming after the Citadel?”  
  
“We’d starve them out before that would happen.” Cheedo was all confidence.  
  
“Gas Town isn’t the only threat. If the Farm drops out of the picture, your eastern flank will be wholly exposed. We’re the only thing keeping the mountain tribes off the Citadel plain. You’ll have the remnants of the Rock Riders crawling up your back tower, with the Skags close behind. The Buzzards will come circling. And don’t forget about Jesbit Irondog. She’s still out there, and you can bet she’s waiting for an opportunity.”  
  
Cheedo downshifted into dismay.  
  
Furiosa crossed her arms. Flesh pressed dull against the gleam of her metal hand. Cal noticed her new arm was simpler, less... mean.  
  
“Gas Town will just sit back and let them soften you up,” Cal finished, hunching over in her seat. Her pain medication was starting to wear off. “Help me keep the balance. Fourteen days of food and water doubles my production capacities. I pay my debt to Gas Town then settle with you in three weeks if you send me home today with what I need. It will give us all time to… adjust.”  
  
Furiosa took it in, thoughts visibly passing over her face. Her serious features no longer needed to be kept so carefully still. None of them needed to be as still. Only Cal felt frozen in place.  
  
The former Imperator said to Capable, “How much can we do?”  
  
“I’ll have to talk to Toast.”  
  
“Then go.” Furiosa turned to the Dag and Cheedo. “You two. Go get something for our old friend here to eat. She looks thin.”  
  
The girls bustled out. Cal and Furiosa were left alone.  
  
Cal did not want to talk. Slow, purple stabs of discomfort were blooming in her belly. But the deal had to be sealed, for any number of reasons. She asked, “Are these children capable of running this place? Who taught them?”  
  
Furiosa quietly considered the door behind which Capable and Toast conferred. “What’s to teach? Controlling others through fear: of thirst or starvation, of torture or rape? That world died once I ripped that god-forsaken skull mask off him. Everyone learned that day there was no god, just a twisted old man.”  
  
Cal forgot her pain for a moment as the throttle of her anger opened. “Do I need to remind you that twisted old man brought civilization back from the brink? When the pumps break, will Cheedo know how to fix them? Will Capable know how to organize the War Boys against an attack? Will the Dag get up on the Skullmouth and tell them that if they die in her service they will go to glory?”  
  
Furiosa’s lip curled. “I would say I’m surprised to hear you defend him, but I’m not. You’ve never hidden your position. How exactly did you justify it to yourself, Caliber?”  
  
Cal said flatly, “It worked for me.”  
  
“If we give you your credit, can we count on the Bullet Farm’s continued alliance to the Citadel?  
  
“As long as you keep trading, yes. But if you continue to drop your demand, I’ll be forced to find other, more lucrative partners.” Her shrug was deliberately casual. “You know how it goes.”  
  
The stare the two women exchanged was long and hard.  
  
They were still staring when Toast and Capable returned. Toast spoke. Her anger had waned. “We did the figures. We can do ten days advance food and water credit, max. Any more and we throw our own balance off too much.”  
  
Cal stood up. “Accepted.”  
  
Furiosa harrumphed and stalked out the door.  
  
  
  
  
____________________________  
  
  
The Sisters accompanied Cal as she rode down on the platform. Furiosa remained Up Top.  
  
Cal stood with her feet wide apart for balance, hissing air through each throb of pain. The clanking of the giant chains covered the noise. Trap was stiff at her side, uncomfortable, out of his depth. Such was his distraction that when Cal’s legs buckled under her, he didn’t catch her in time.  
  
She hit the platform with a clatter of brass.  
  
The girls cried out in alarm. Cal felt smooth hands under her neck and shoulders; lifting, supporting. She was vaguely aware of Trap and the other men edging away from the clot of female bodies.  
  
“You should stay,” said the Dag. “Stay the night and rest.”  
  
“I’m fine.” The gears ate up the words.  
  
Cal struggled to her feet. The girls helped.  
  
“I’m fine,” she said again, Capable’s arm around her waist.  
  
The platform thumped home. Pain was streaming through her, purple to orange to purple again, echoing the burning sunset. Cal put her hand on her belly to hold in the discomfort and too late realized they were all watching her closely.  
  
She could see them doing math in their heads.  
  
Capable gave her a sympathetic squeeze before letting go. Cheedo’s smile was small and sad. The Dag had one tattooed knuckle between her teeth, biting back some comment.  
  
Cal forced strength into her limbs and strode off the platform into the smoldering dust, her men behind her.  
  
It was Toast – always Toast – who spoke. “Just don’t name it Joe.”    
  
There was a whistle. The platform ascended.  
  
  
  
  
____________________________  
  
  
“I brought you something.” Cal dumped the struggling bundle onto the floor. Joe stared at it with great curiosity. When his eyes flickered to Cal, the curiosity was replaced with chilly suspicion.  
  
He gestured to a waiting War Boy. “I want to see what that is.”  
  
The bag was slit open. The head of a girl with coffee-colored skin emerged. She took one look at Joe and spit.  
  
Saliva slithered down the front of the warlord's armor. A War Pup knelt to wipe it away. As he was tended to, Joe said, “If I remember correctly, Caliber, your own sister greeted me in a similar fashion back when she and I first met, years ago.”  
  
Cal remembered. Maus had been old enough to walk and talk. Challenging everything and anything, she'd been a massive handful. Ma was dead. Cal was seven. She was supposed to mind Maus but Rictus was there and all Cal could think of was how excited she was to play animals again.  Her agile sister slipped from her grasp and toddled up to Joe. When he’d crouched to get a better look at her, Maus spit right in his face.  
  
“Pa lashed me for that. I still have the scars.”  
  
“I know.” Joe’s tone was smug. His attention returned to the girl in the bag. “So, this one again.”  
  
“Yes. I convinced Pa he should stop being difficult about that old bargain. I’m tired of tending to her and we can’t put her to good use in the mine. She’s too much trouble.”  
  
“Still healthy?”  
  
“Full life. Bleeds regular. Mechanic says she’s alpha prime. Untouched.”  
  
The brown girl struggled around in the bag and spit on Cal.  
  
Cal wiped her weathered cheek. “You see why.”  
  
Chuckling to himself, Joe circled, just out of range. “We can fix that.”  
  
At his gesture, the War Boys bundled the brown girl back up. She struggled like a bagworm, arching her back and snarling. Her cries faded down the corridor, leaving a miasma of desperate resistance lingering on the stone. Joe and Cal, both spit upon, regarded each other with wry expressions.  
  
“So, Caliber. Your father is a man of principle and not one to easily forgive a debt. That broken bargain has stood between us for years.” Joe swept around the room, war club in hand, white linen skirting flowing out behind him. “Convincing him to drop it must have taken quite the effort.”  
  
Cal hoped he was as pleased as he sounded. Her confidence faltered when he sauntered up to her, war club held out before him. The heavy wood thunked against her breast. Joe ran the tip up and down her bandoliers, making the bullets purr. His voice was deadly behind his mask. “What have you done now, Callie? What is so bad that it requires you bring me a Wife in hopes of softening the blow?”  
  
Cal wondered briefly if it was too late to salvage the promised re-alliance with Jesbit. Yes, it was. The words _skag_ and _smeg_ and _schlanger-sucking gearbag_ couldn’t be unspoken. Jesbit would never align with the Citadel now.  
  
“I’m sorry–” she began. Joe jabbed the tip of the war club under her chin. Cal's eyes watered in pain.  
  
“Shut up.” He whirled on his heel. He knew she would follow. There was no other choice. “You can tell me in my quarters."  
  
  
  
  
____________________________  
  
  
“Behave yourself, or you’re out.”  
  
Pa’s nose was just about touching hers. He smelled of oil and fresh gunpowder. The bullets all along his headdress shone under the electric lights of the Council chamber. It had taken Maus two days of continuous work to polish them all.  
  
Cal had polished her own with grand enthusiasm.  
  
Now that she was here, her enthusiasm was waning fast. The rough hewn Council chamber was a hard room. Every man was staring. Their gazes were rough hands, dragging along her limbs and throat. The only woman – a leather bag with memories of breasts and hips – ignored her. Her refusal to acknowledge made Cal feel unexpectedly abandoned.  
  
Her father held up a warning finger. “Watch. Listen. That is all. Now go stand with your cousin.”  
  
Rictus was the only one delighted by her presence. His smile bunched the compression garment covering his face and turned his eyes into half-moon slivers of joy. Cal slipped between him and a high-ranking Polecat from the People Eater’s entourage. Rictus petted her head in greeting. The Polecat laughed into the spatula covering his mouth.  
  
Cal clasped her hands over her decorative loin-skirt and tried to belong.

She found it confusing when the entire room saluted a small chair wheeled in by two War Boys. Rictus elbowed her. She threw her hands up in a messy V8.  
  
“That’s my brother,” Rictus said. “Corpus.”  
  
Rictus took charge of the chair. He rolled it back to where Cal stood. It took her a second to realize the fleshy lump in it was alive. Twisted feet bookended the fringed emblem of an Imperator. The little bare chest sucked air, crumpling with each labored breath. But the eyes, bright and beady, were formidable.  
  
“This is Cal, from the Bullet Farm.” Rictus leaned down to his brother. "She's the one who gave me Bear."

Cal died a little inside.  
  
Corpus sneered. “You’re going to need to get a lot uglier before anyone takes you seriously.”  
  
The Polecat's spatula caught another snort.

Cal, towering over Corpus, had never felt so small.  
  
At least the Immortan’s arrival didn’t take her by surprise. They all heard him thumping down the corridor long before his Imperators bellowed him over the threshold. Hands went up, heads bowed.  
  
The room took on weight as the creaking of the respirator filled the room. Cal peeked under her fingers. He was staring right at her.  
  
“Welcome to Council, Caliber,” he purred.  
  
The Polecat snorted at that, too.  
  
Before Cal could put down her hands, Joe surged forward, a hollow snarl ripping from his mask.  The Polecat was grabbed by the throat and thrown to the floor. Two ferocious kicks to the midsection curled him up like a wheel bug. Rictus rolled him out the door.  
  
Now absolutely everyone was staring at her: Pa, the People Eater, their guards, Rictus, Corpus, the leathery woman and Joe. Especially Joe. Staring and breathing heavily. His slitted blue eyes burned with satisfied violence. Fear, sweet and tingling, rippled up Cal's spine from deep inside her. He saw.  
  
“Now then.” It seemed the Immortan spoke to Cal and Cal alone. “Let’s begin.”  
  
  
  
  
____________________________  
  
  
There was the soft scrape of a step. Cal whipped around, gun in hand.  
  
“Hey.” Maus came shyly around the corner, windburned and worried.  
  
“I almost ventilated you,” Cal said angrily, holstering. “You should have come back during the day.”  
  
“You know I don’t do big entrances.” With easy grace, the younger woman deposited her dirty baggage on the floor, then began to unlace her boots. Her muddy boots.  
  
“Where have you been, Maus?  
  
“The Citadel.”  
  
“All this time?”  
  
The narrow shoulders eased under her wrap. “Some.” Maus finished with her shoes and stood straight. Dust fell from her short hair as she tilted her head to peer at her sister. “You look like hell, Cal.”  
  
“Not surprising.” Cal moved heavily to the head of the table and sat in her father’s chair. The metal complained under her weight, the same as when Pa had occupied it. “It’s _been_ hell. But what would you know? You haven’t been here.”  
  
“Maybe not, but I was _there_. I’ve seen how it’s unraveling, Down Below. I listened to what they’re saying about Furiosa. And I heard about how you came and begged.”  
  
Cal laced her fingers together and wearily rested her forehead against her hands.  
  
“So they agreed to help you settle the debt?”  
  
“Is there anything you don’t know?”  
  
“I listen, Cal. That’s what I do.” Her sister drifted close. She brought with her the smell of hot motorbikes and it made Cal’s soul ache for the days when she’d led the raids across the Waste. “You take action. I listen, because out there, that’s how you learn. You hear things.”  
  
“So, what have you heard?”  
  
Maus knelt down, putting her forearms on the scarred table. Cal was surprised to see her smile.  
  
“There’s a new tribe. Near the Salt. We got to talking. They have munitions for trade.”  
  
Outside the room, the machines were still running full on even though it was well past sundown. The additional food and water had done its job; revitalized, the slaves and workers were putting their backs into it, laboring under the promise that this push would prevent another shortage from ever happening again. Cal did not intend to disappoint them.  
  
“Munitions? Why would we need munitions? _We make them._ ”  
  
“Not these." Maus pulled out a scrap of oil-stained paper. Faded typography whispered across the fibers, a mottled background for the drawing scratched over it. A long shape, cylindrical, but with a tip that vaguely resembled one of the ‘tacks’ her father used to affix his maps to the wall. A shell.  
  
Cal took the paper from her, turning it around in her hands as if that would make the image on it become three dimensional. “You saw it.”  
  
“Yes. Huge. As long as my arm. Longer even. They have three.”  
  
“Three.” Cal swallowed thickly. “Live?”  
  
“They said so. Said they’d found them in a crate buried under thirty feet of sand. One twenties, they called them.”  
  
“By the V8.” Cal put the paper down. Her hands shook, and not from pain.  
  
“Will they fit?”  
  
Cal nodded.  
  
Maus, sun-bleached eyes dancing, could barely contain her excitement. “Imagine rolling up on Gas Town with one of those locked and loaded in your baby, Cal. That’ll shut them up. They won’t give us any trouble once they know you could blast the whole refinery from here to Valhalla.”  
  
It sounded good. It sounded chrome. It sounded as shine and A-one as any plan ever had. But Cal, who had spent her entire adult life around men whose sole purpose was outsmarting others for their own benefit, saw the flaw. Everyone needed guzzoline. _Everyone_. To destroy Gas Town would be to kill the world all over again. No warlord worth his salt would take such a threat seriously.  
  
She didn’t tell her sister this. Instead, she scrubbed a hand lovingly through Maus’ short hair and kissed her dirty forehead.  
  
Cal would not use the rounds on Gas Town.  
  
She would use them somewhere else.


	8. Chapter 8

The Wretched were surging.  
  
With a nudge of her boot, Cal indicated to her driver not to stop. The stink of leathery rot washed over the hood and windscreen as the Bullet Farm's tires bumped over soft things that popped. A few shrieks wicked up but the onslaught of desperate bodies continued.  
  
Cal, standing in the gunner’s bed, held on to the grab bar and reeled. Trap was at her side. He was making sure she didn’t fall again. Her Mechanic had administered a shot as soon as the Sisters had left them, filling her veins with a slick yellow numbness. Trap’s hand on her back was a dull mitt; the danger of the crowd merely theoretical.  
  
She had enough presence of mind to spit. “Ridiculous.”  
  
“Furiosa needs to thunder up on this mess.” Trap shoved a toothless man off the side of the truck. The Polecat flicked a shred of rotting skin off his hand as he returned to Cal. “What did Toast say to you, anyway?”  
  
“Nothing, really," she lied. The drug made it easy. "She was just being cross.”  
  
“She’s always cross. Hey, bike! Watch the bike, watch the bike!”  
  
A motorcycle speared in a zig-zag through the tangled crowd. Its Wretch pilot plowed into Cal’s forward scout buggy with a yodeling howl. The rear wheel kicked upwards in a wide arc, throwing dirt. The impact's momentum catapulted the rider into the open cab.  Gunfire barked. Cal saw one of her men bolt up through the roll cage, hands to his spurting throat. The splashes of red threatened to puncture her numbness. The buggy wrenched left as the Wretch and driver fought. It skidded down the dusty berm, throwing bodies.  
  
Cal drew her father's Buntline. She knew she’d brought it for a reason. Smooth in the calm of the painkiller, she leveled the long-barreled pistol at the slaloming car, exhaled and squeezed the trigger.  
  
Blood and brains braided themselves in the air as the Wretch’s head exploded. There was a snarl of engine, a fountain of dirt.  The buggy regained the roadway with one graceful bounce. The dead Wretch, dangling from the roll cage, was hauled off by his brethren to be shredded.   
  
Cal holstered the Bunt. The Wretched were now a furious clot, one that a single shot Colt could never split.“Trap, I need you up on the machine gun. Now.”  
  
“I don’t do guns. I do poles.”  
  
Cal’s face twisted. “On it, Trap! Fire a warning volley over this fucking wreckage. Three second burst. On my mark!”  
  
“These are Furiosa’s people, Cal!”  
  
“These are Wasteland garbage.”  
  
“Didn’t you just cut a deal? If we fire, won’t that ruin everything?”  
  
“What good will a deal be if we get torn apart before we even clear the perimeter?” Snarling, she shoved the Polecat towards the pivot-mounted gun. “Get up there or I’ll have your head on your beloved pole before the sun sets.”  
  
Trap went, dark eyes slitted with mistrust. Cal faced forward, one slack hand raised high. Then she dropped it to the roof of the truck with a bang.  
  
The machine gun roared.  
  
The crowd went flat in waves. Bullets took some airborne, their digging implements and ragged teepees pinwheeling. There was a brief moment where nothing moved. Cal grabbed her binoculars and spun to scan the Citadel.  
  
No reaction. No War Boys. No guards. No curious faces at the Skullmouth, no search lights. Only a few still figures on the bridges.  
  
The Citadel was complacent now. _Complacent and weak._  
  
“I think they got the message,” she slurred.  
  
  
  
  
  
_________________________________  
  
  
There was a glint in the Chase wreckage in the canyon pass. Just a flash, but enough to catch Cal’s attention. As she strode toward the scavs sifting the debris, she pulled her traveling hood down low over her face. It helped cover her leer of revulsion. She had no patience for this plundering of Joe's dead armada. It hadn't even been a week.

“What’s that you have there?”

The scav looked up, clutching an elaborate object to her scabrous breast. Her grin revealed empty gums, dry and shrunken. “I got a pretty. I’ll trade, iffn the price is right.”  
  
Cal's heart was hammering. Yes, there was no mistaking it. It was a wheel. Wrapped in bullets. Pa’s.  
  
“What do you want for it?”  
  
“Aqua-cola. One gallon.”  
  
“Steep price, old woman.”  
  
“It’s quality.” The wheel was held up. “Feel the weight, love.”  
  
Cal took it gently, hefting it. The hundred times she’d brought it to Pa were all suddenly suspended in her hand. Feel the weight, indeed.  
  
From behind the old woman, Cal’s Imperator saw what she held. His mouth dropped open.  
  
Cal handed the wheel back. “Not worth it.”  
  
She was halfway to her vehicle when a tug on her kit straps brought her to a stop. The old woman came scuttling, never rising past waist height, little more than a subservient beetle covered in a carapace of tumors and dirty, open wounds.  
  
“I’ll bargain! Three-fourths a gal. You’ll drive away in style.”  
  
Cal made a disgusted sound.  
  
“Half! I’ll do half a gallon! Help an old mam, love. I can see it suits you.”  
  
Cal stopped. Her Imperator shadowed them, just off to the side, alert and ready to assist if needed.  
  
“Half, you say?”  
  
The scav aired her gums in agreement.  
  
Cal tugged her hood back.

The scav froze. Her gummy eyes ticked across the tattoos, followed Cal’s gaunt, tan cheeks down her bullet-threaded braids. Dread recognition dawned over her wind-worn face.  
  
In a voice like the rarest ice, Cal said, “How about I give you this?” then drew her pistol and fired.

A pea-sized hole appeared between the scav’s brows. Cloudy eyes registered surprise, then rolled back. One dry gasp escaped the body before it pitched forward into the dust. Pa’s wheel thumped against Cal’s boot.  
  
Then Cal did the unthinkable.  
  
She pulled out her canteen with a flourish. At arms length, she held it like a talisman. Her body turned in a long arc, displaying the canteen for all to see.  
  
Two sharp twists loosened the cap. Cal poured her water over the dead woman’s head.  
  
The canyon gasped.  
  
“Let no one say I don’t keep my bargains!” she bellowed. The words echoed off the rock walls, deep with rage, and hollow, as if spoken through some kind of mask.

 

 

  
______________________________

  
“Measure it again.”  
  
The Powder Boy was whimpering. He limped back and forth between the tables as he portioned out the ammunition for the third time. Thin trails of criss-crossing blood marked his progress.  
  
Cal hefted the bullet belt. She wondered if she’d overdone it. The boy could barely sort now. He shook and moaned and dumped rounds onto the scales with frantic hands. Five pounds here, ten pounds there, and soon the weights were totaled to the same number they'd arrived at previously, and the time before. Beatings could not make bullets appear from nothing. They were short. Despite all her efforts, despite the Citadel's loan, the Bullet Farm was still short.  
  
Gas Town would not be pleased.

Imperators shifted from foot to foot while she debated what to do.  
  
She turned to the man at her left. “How many girlslaves do we have?”  
  
He kept his eyes down. “Miss Cal, Gas Town has never been interested much in girlslaves. You know that.”  
  
“Then how many boys?”  
  
The Imperator to her right stammered, “We need all the boys. For the grinders and the forges.”  
  
“Fine. Girlslaves, then. They’ll find a use for them.” Cal thought a bit. “Pick the three healthiest. Ripe ones. They don’t need to be pretty.”  
  
“Yes, Miss Cal,” both Imperators said unhappily.  
  
“Is there some kind of problem?”  
  
“No, ma’am.”  
  
“Then get to it. We’re already late to leave.”  
  
The men set to their tasks. The mood was morbid.  
  
Cal tossed the dripping bullet belt aside and wondered if she'd make it to Gas Town. She had started bleeding last night. Her Mechanic, afraid of her increasingly prevalent rages, looked her over quickly, slipped a needle in her elbow and backed out of the room. Sleep came in a mouthful of ashes. The pain seemed a little better today, but the bleeding hadn't slowed. Any more and she'd need to bring a bloodbag on the trip in addition to the girlslaves.  
  
The slaves were brought up. Definitely not pretty, but they cried the same as pretty girls. It reminded her of a reading session she'd had with Giddy, years back. She and the Wives had been struggling through an incomprehensible book called _The Handmaid's Tale_. They'd all been about to mutiny, when the Vault door slammed open. Joe came barreling in to fling a sobbing girl across the room. The impluvium received her with a wasteful splash. Everyone peeked over their pages at the enraged Immortan.  
  
“Watch that one, Giddy!” He pointed at the girl. They all saw the red crescent oozing blood on the back of his hand. “I’m going to call her Fang the Tasty, because if she ever bites me again, I’ll to feed her to the Wretched!

If Cal remembered correctly, a week or so later, she'd done just that. He'd kept his promise.

The three faces of her trade stared at her with terror and hate. She thought: All your names are Girl the Dead.  
  
The chattel was stuffed into the Abrams. Their begging leaked out through the open hatch.  
  
Cal pressed her hands over her ears.

She felt like she was going insane.  
  
  
  
  
  
______________________________

  
Joe saved the Bullet Farm as the last stop of his new chariot's inaugural tour. After greeting him at the Citadel, Cal raced back home with her troupe. The Farm would not receive the Wasteland God without its own best vehicles on display. Two could play the showing-off game. She parked the Peacemaker and the Abrams side by side in the drive, just behind the gate, then sat down to wait.

Pa was not coming out. He refused to leave his library. “I’m not going to play into his madness, Caliber," he'd told her, stroking one of his beloved Heckler and Koch machine guns. "You go greet him. You haven’t seen the crazy bastard in six months, anyway.”

For thirty minutes, the pounding of drums and clanging of a guitar had been slowly increasing in volume. The Doof Wagon. She could see its silhouette now. Monstrosity. Almost worse than the Gigahorse. One more entry into the Immortan’s increasingly wasteful armada.  
  
Now, the Citadel gang pulled up in all their blaring, blasting glory: Doof Wagon, two Wreckers, several double engine buggies, a host of motorbikes, and Joe's snarling Gigahorse. Thundersticks bounced, War Boys clamored, engines revved and the red-suited guitarist chugged a slow, demanding rhythm.  
  
“Aren’t you going to let him in?” her Imperator yelled over the din.  
  
Cal rubbed the crooked bridge of her nose. “Let him wait.”  
  
The two tanks were completely blocking the drive. Cal remained cross legged on the front of the Abrams. Joe glared down at her from over the Gigahorse’s white steering wheel. He shoved the huge car into park, then struggled to turn around in the front seat. Tight fit, she thought and laughed out loud. His skull mask jerked up and down as he bellowed at his men.  
  
One of his Imperators motioned to hers with an angry hand. Her man said, “We need to let him in.”  
  
“Tell him to turn that racket off first.”  
  
Fear played a tug-of-war with loyalty on her Prime's bronze features. He looked from the thumping Doof Wagon to Cal and back again.

“Tell him or I’ll put a bullet in that red simpleton up there.” With that, she drew. The guitarist pointed his face right at her but did not react. Cal realized he was blind.  
  
Joe, despite his age, was not. His kohl-shadowed eyes widened with outrage as his hoses shook.  
  
Cal’s Prime grabbed at her. “Are you out of your mind?”  
  
“Keep shaking me and you’ll find out.”  
  
Her man ran to the gates, swinging his black scarf over his head. Cal kept her pistol steady. She sneering sideways at Joe, who was filling up the interior of his new car with a God's wrath. Heedless to it all, the guitarist continued to strum, until Joe’s War Boys stopped him with a tug to his ragged long johns.  
  
There was a squeal of feedback. Everyone, including Joe, flinched. Then it was quiet.  
  
Cal lowered her gun. “Now that’s better.”  
  
The Immortan slammed the Gigahorse into drive and blasted the horn.  
  
“Fine. Let him in now.”  
  
Cal's driver pulled the Abrams just far enough to the right to allow the plow-fronted Gigahorse entry. As it drew abreast, she took position on the turret to look the warlord in the eye. She made a point not to salute. Joe wrapped a thickened hand around the windshield pillar, and after some wiggling, levered his head and shoulders half out the window at her. “You try a God’s patience, Caliber!”  
  
"You try mine, Immortan. All that noise gives me headaches. I get those now, ever since you broke my nose.”  
  
He sank back a little. “This is neither the time nor place for such a discussion, Cal.”  
  
“Then back up and go home, you fat smeg.”  
  
Hurt flickered in his eyes.

Six months might have been six minutes for all it mattered. This close to him she could see sickly sweat beading in his hairline and exhausted bags under his eyes. His full life was running down, and fast. A dust storm formed in Cal’s breast. It whirled and thundered. She wanted to grab his hoses and rip them free so he would strangle in the dirty air. She wanted to put her gun to his temple and blow his brains all over shine the interior of his car. After what he'd done, no one would blame her. But behind the whirling grit and destructive winds inside her, there was a sick calm. It was made of the eerie, weak light from the eye of the storm. This calm saw anger and want and perhaps regret battle in Joe’s expression, and whispered: _Just once. Once more._  
  
She stomped her foot. The Abrams pulled away. The Gigahorse rolled in.  
  
Watching him pass, she knew.  
  
It wasn’t over.  
  
  
  
_________________________________  
  
  
The first council, aside from the excitement with the Polecat, was dreadfully boring. Cal amused herself by counting the number of times the People Eater belched behind his hand.  
  
The second, four weeks later, was better. Two prisoners were bled of their secrets by Jesbit and Pa. Rictus made gigantic, impressed faces when he thought no one was looking. Cal had to bite her lip to suppress her laughter.  
  
The third Council took place high into the hot season. The ride from the Farm left Cal sticky under her leather finery. Not thinking, she casually unbuckled the top of her vest to allow some of the cool Chamber air against her prickly skin. Uncle Joe heard the buckle’s click and sat up straight. For the rest of the meeting, he stared at Cal. Hard. The leaden weight of his attention made sweat trickle between her breasts and down her belly. A tickle developed between her legs and got worse every time Cal met his unflinching, expressionless gaze. On the ride back home, Pa cuffed her for being unable to sit still.  
  
And during the fourth Council, she got thrown out.  
  
It hadn’t been her fault, really. The spatula-faced Polecat was back and committed to more covert harassment this time. Every ten minutes, his hand would creep under Cal’s loin-skirt to pinch her through her trousers. The first few times, she'd kept quiet and batted his hand away. Then he’d finally gotten in a good, hard twist. Her yelp silenced the room.  
  
Rictus, enraged, came to her rescue by slugging the Polecat.  
  
“Both of you, out!” Pa ordered.  
  
Joe said nothing. He slouched in his chair, one hand resting on his inner thigh, fingers drumming along the inseam of his pants.  
  
Rictus had to be physically removed. The world was killed, reborn and killed again in the time it took for the guards to drag him out and lock him away. Cal was forced to wait. When she finally scuttled out, she received a kick to her rump as a goodbye.  
  
Fuming, she stalked to the Skullmouth to watch the night fall on the teeming Wretched below. This space was the locus of the Immortan’s power. It yawned heavy with his presence. She laid her hands lightly on the locked pump levers, the thrum of the machinery below tickling her palms. What would it be like to shove them forward, to feel the roar of the water shake the tower, to hold the balance of power over so much with such a simple thing. Across from her, in the Garage, two night patrol vehicles were ready to be lowered. Grille-covered headlamps threw bars of light across to where she stood. The Brakeman blew his shrill whistle. The clunk of the locks echoed thick in her soul.  
  
As she watched the vehicles drop, Cal sensed a presence in the room. She was not surprised to hear the creak of bellows and the omnipresent hiss of filtered air.  
  
“There you are.” Joe said. His voice was cool and calm. “Preparing to give a speech to my faithful?”  
  
“No, I’m considering throwing myself off.”  
  
He clucked his tongue at her sour words. “Now, now, child.”  
  
“I haven’t been a child for a long time, Uncle Joe. And I didn’t expect all I’d do in Council is stand in the back.”  
  
He came into the balcony proper with her. “You need to _earn_ your seat at the table, Caliber.”  
  
“How?” She turned around. He was right behind her, looming, only slightly taller but twice her size. The crinkles at the corners of his eyes were prominent but instead of affection there, Cal saw something darker. It was time to stop calling him Uncle.  
  
Her step back was reflexive.  
  
“You wish to work in a world of men,” he growled. “You need a mentor.”  
  
“My father is my mentor.”  
  
“Not in the way I mean.”  
  
The dim, overhead lights cast shadows of terrible promises all around them. Joe lowered his head and took another step closer. His breastplate medals and their dangling chains clinked against her bandoliers. One of his hands stole to her loin-skirt. Unlike with the Polecat, Cal did not try to bat it away. She tingled as his fingers trailed up the outside of her thigh.  
  
“A woman like you needs a man to protect her. To advocate for her until her voice stands on her own,” he said. With his other hand, he stroked her wavy, dark hair, letting it sift through his fingers until he was brushing her cheek with his knuckles. The wet thumping of the pumps aligned with his heavy breathing in a sensual rhythm that soon had her own breath in synch.  
  
Joe’s palm slid under her skirt to grip her rump with firm intent. She couldn’t stop herself from tilting her pelvis towards him. Her heart was hammering as her body blazed with heat. This was it. Would she be a dog, so that she might run with the wolves?  
  
"You'll protect me then?” She placed her hand on his armored chest. Very warm.  
  
“I'll do more than that,” he husked.  
  
She let him lean into her. His rough codpiece dug into her thigh. She pressed her leg against it and was rewarded with a widening of his eyes. I’ll be the best dog I can be, Cal thought. Then she made ready for what would come next.  
  
Except that it didn’t. A clatter at the back of the chamber made them both jump. Rictus bellowed in. “Dad! Dad! I got out. I had to break the door, though!”  
  
Joe made a strangled sound. Cal stepped away from him. Neither of them wanted Rictus to see and be crushed.


	9. Chapter 9

The alarm klaxon made them both jump out of their skins.  
  
Maus was out the door first, sprinting towards the yard. Cal came after, slow and pale. Her bones were lead; her entire body had become a counterweight against her own progress.  
  
As she huffed through the garage doors, she saw Pa's Prime Imperator holding out his hands. They were shiny, like his forehead, but red. He seemed greatly distressed and shoved past Cal, forearming her into the doorframe.  
  
The yard was chaos. Steaming vehicles were a tangle of angled bumpers. Gear was being flung out of cars that were threatening to ignite. The dusty tan of Maus’ traveling gear flashed between frantic male bodies.  In the middle of it all, a man lay on a makeshift litter woven from shredded tires. He held his bleeding leg with clotted hands and shouted orders through a mouth streaming blood.  
  
Maus went skidding. She fell on her knees in the dirt. “Pa!”  
  
Cal bawled, “Where’s the Organic?”  
  
A soldier nearby threw a finger towards one of the open trucks. Cal stumbled to it and looked in the bed. Their Organic’s guts sloshed around his waxy corpse, evenly coating the corrugated metal in a syrup of frothy pink. Cal thought “mortar” then puked heavily into the dirt. The world was slipping all around her, sand sifting off the lip of a dune. Over her retching, she could hear Maus hollering for help.  
  
Pa would kill her if she didn't pull it together. Cal reeled between the men to join her sister. Her father's blood was oozing from his thigh in a thick stream between his clenched fingers. Another bullet meant for his brain had only succeeded in peeling off a long strip of scalp. Skin and hair curled against his cheek,  a beckoning finger.  The sight chambered another round of nausea in the barrel of Cal’s throat.  
  
Maus was unbothered by the gore. Brisk, she pulled rags from her open bag. She pressed one to Pa’s head. Cal tried to help by holding it in place.  
  
Pa was too angry to be mortally wounded. Bright-eyed and snarling, he elbowed Cal away and glowered at Maus as she tied a confident tourniquet around his thigh.  
  
“Who taught you how to do that?”  
  
“People.” Maus busily tore gauze. “Pa, let Cal help. We need to get you inside so I can look at your wounds.”  
  
Cal made a messy knot with the gauze. Pa gave orders to his men. An old surfboard was brought from inside the Farm garage. Maus oversaw the transfer of her father from litter to board, checked the tourniquet, then pelted back inside to prepare.  
  
“Maybe she’s not useless after all,” Pa muttered.  
  
“Seems so.” Cal’s world stopped sliding for the moment. She finally noticed the bullet holes in the vehicles, black oil dripping from punctured engines. She saw the other casualties being tended by their comrades, several gutshot and moaning. She saw the gaps between Pa’s teeth. Every bullet fired, even his emergency spares.  
  
“What happened, Pa?”  
  
“Ambush.”  
  
“Who?”  
  
The blood channeled in her father’s leathery face was a heavy outline around his disgust. He hawked and spat. Cal’s stomach chugged over.  Through the growing roar in her head, she heard him snap, “Carpetsnakes. They have a new leader. You’ll remember him. He was the one ex-husband you stupidly left alive.”

  
  
_________________________________  
  
  
Cal came to on the floor outside the family quarters. A Reload Rat peered down at her. The young boy held her circlet of bullets in his mangled little hands.  
  
“She said wait until you woke up to give you this.”  
  
Cal took the circlet from the Rat, smiling weakly as she placed it back on her head. “Who said wait?”  
  
“Miss Maus.”  
  
“Where is she?”  
  
“I’m right here, Cal.” Maus came through the door, wiping bloody hands with a red utility rag. She reached into her pocket and tossed the boy a biscuit wrapped in waxy paper. “Thanks, little one. Back to the presses with you, then.”  
  
The Rat scampered away. The hallway became mostly quiet except for Pa’s moaning, just beyond the door.  
  
Cal looked towards the sounds. “Is he–?”  
  
“He’s fine.” Maus crouched. She picked small debris off Cal’s clothing. “The leg shot was clean through. Didn't tumble. Bleeding’s stopped. He's moaning because Seamstress is sewing his hair back on.  He’s making her go extra slow so. Wants the job to be prime. Vain old bastard, he is.”  
  
There was careful humor in the smile they shared. Cal rubbed her head. Sore. “What happened to me?”  
  
“You fainted.” Maus produced another biscuit from a different pocket. “Nibble on this. You look like you haven’t eaten in a week.”  
  
The taste of the biscuit was delicate. It had not come from the Farm kitchen. Cal wolfed it down.   
  
“Go easy, Cal. I don’t need you puking again.”  
  
“Sorry.”  
  
“I want to know what’s going on with you.”  
  
Cal wiped crumbs off her lips, then took a swig from her canteen. “I’m just sick.” As an afterthought, she added, “From all the blood.”  
  
Maus didn’t bite. “That's bollocks and you know it. You cut throats for the Immortan like his butchers cut meat. Plus, I heard you puking in the jakes last night before I came inside. It’s not ‘all the blood.’ How long has this been going on?”  
  
“I don’t know, Maus. Maybe a week? Not long.”  
  
“And when was the last time you were at the Citadel?’  
  
“Maus, Pa’s all shot up and here you are grilling me–“  
  
Suddenly fierce, Maus cut her off. “When, Cal?”  
  
Her sister had been gone a lot lately. Running and running and running. Returning every few weeks with odd clothes, new skills and strange food. Her eyes, which saw much, bored into Cal. They demanded a truthful answer. “Last week.”  
  
“That’s it?”  
  
“I’m there all the time, Maus. You know that. Council, raid planning, catchup lessons with Giddy. Same things I’ve done for the last five years.”  
  
“What else did you do?”  
  
The two women exchanged another look. This one was absent of any levity. “You know what else.”  
  
“And you bled last?”  
  
“By the V8, Maus, no. Stop.”  
  
“Don’t swear! And I’m not going to stop!” Her sister shook her with narrow hands made of permanently dust-dried flesh. “Half his Wives die because of what he starts in them!”  
  
“That’s not what’s happening! And anyway, he wouldn’t let me die.”  
  
“Cal, did you just crawl out from under a skinhut yesterday? Listen to yourself!”  
  
“He wouldn’t!” The biscuit was now slag in Cal’s unhappy stomach. Why wouldn’t Maus just let her be? Always with the questions and the judgement, insidious as sand slipping between stocking and boot.  “I’m valuable! I’m two successful raids away from earning my wheel and–”  
  
Cal doubled over. Maus loosed a weary sigh. She held Cal’s circlet and braids while Cal heaved the biscuit onto the floor. When she was done, Maus hauled her up using the drag loop on the back of her vest.  “Let’s get you back to your rooms, Cal. I’ve got a tea that will help your stomach. I’ll bring it once you’re settled.”  


________________________________  
  
  
The tea helped, bitter as it was. Maus made sure Cal drank a cup every few hours.  
  
Pa glowered in his bed, counting time while flipping his .50 cal shell between his fingers.  
  
Joe showed up a few days later in the mid-afternoon, unannounced. He insisted the girls stop everything to accommodate an audience with his old friend. Cal shoved Maus out of the way in order to be the first through the door with the platters of food. She made many trips between the kitchen and Pa’s rooms. As the evening wore on, she became ashen. Eventually, even Joe noticed her pallor and told her to go lie down.  
  
Her courses started that night – later than usual, and heavy. They reduced her to a shivering ball of moaning incoherence. In a quiet moment between onslaughts of cramps, Cal heard Maus spit angry words at someone just outside the door. There was a deep snarl followed by a sharp crack. When Maus came in, the handprint on her cheek stood out as if painted. She wiped Cal's brow with a cool rag and refused to explain.  
  
The Immortan departed. Pa appeared, maudlin and reeking of homemade liquor. He sat at her bedside, stiff in his bandages, unsteadily patting Cal’s shoulder as she sobbed her pain into her pillow.  
  
Maus brought Cal different teas, these not so bitter, and held her head while she drank them.

A dust storm rolled in and put the entire Wasteland on pause for some time. The light in the Bullet Farm family quarters was crimson from the sand piled up against the windows.  
  
Cal's bleeding slowed then finally stopped. Her terrible fatigue went away.  
  
Pa recovered at a similar pace. The .50 cal shell went back into his pocket and stayed there.  
  
Maus disappeared once the sand was shoveled away. She left a box of salves and tiny tins of dried herbs on the dining table.  
  
Cal earned her wheel less than a month later.  
  
  
  
  
  
_________________________________  
  
  
After the Chase, sleep came threadbare, old canvas draped over the ground-down surfaces of memory. Caliber never slept well, but now her nights were torment. The dreams worked holes though the rough fabric of her rest. Always the same: Joe, alive, or Joe, dead.  
  
Trap’s snores collected against the low ceiling. The soft hissing of the mask, a sound Cal had come to loathe, would have been much more welcome.  
  
The Gas Town warlord had sent another dunning notice, this in the form of a burning ring of tar encircling the whole Farm, laid out in the middle of the night and set alight. Impressive, she had to admit. Historic. Joe would have liked it.

She scrubbed her long hands over her longer face.

What she would have done for one of Maus’ teas. Especially the one for sleep. But Maus was not there.  
  
There would be no more dreams tonight. Cal swung her legs out of the bed and put her feet on the gritty floor. The ragged scrap tucked in the crook of her arm flopped about. The one eyed dog was now also one-eared and three-legged, but it was still soft. Cal remained hunched over, nose resting in the last remaining patch of fur on the dog's head.  
  
“Are you hugging that thing again?”  
  
“Trap, go back to sleep.”  
  
She felt him get up. “That toy is disgusting. I don’t understand why you still have it.”  
  
“Shut up, Trap. You don’t know.”  
  
“That I don’t.” Trap curled his lip at her before padding across the room to the window. As he peered out at the purpling dawn, he absently rubbed his swollen neck. The flaming skull brand was stretched across his darkly tattooed Polecat skin.  
  
Cal clamped her eyes shut and pressed her nose harder into the dog. In the Farm garage, the sound of tank engines being tuned fractured the morning with staccato rasps. It should have been reassuring, a sound of pride and power, a sound that feared no debts, no rings of fire, no upstart warlords. Instead, it was the sound of emptiness.  
  
Trap sat down on the windowsill. He drew engines in the dust. “For the sake of V8 and all that is shine, would you tell me what is the matter, Cal?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“I wish you would. You’ve been awful as of late.”  
  
Cal set her dog aside and began to dress. “I’ll be better after I settle with Gas Town.”  
  
  
  
  
_____________________________  
  
  
When she turned eighteen, Pa allowed her to officially snipe for the Immortan.  
  
They’d just gotten Furiosa back after her attempt at running away. It had been a shame to shoot the hard-to-find truck tires, but Joe insisted the stolen vehicle be disabled and not his unruly driver. No one understood why. No one dared question it. The God’s will was his own and not to be doubted.

Cal performed her duty and well. Six breaths, six shots, six tires. Furiosa was dragged by the arms from the cab. Cal did not watch what came after.  
  
Now, she sat on a tarp with her Barrett disassembled. It was the middle of the day and she had most of her kit off. She felt light and free, wearing only a dull green tunic and traveling pants. The old tunic was stretched and sat low, allowing her freshly-done braids to brush across her bare shoulders. The sun was her pleasant companion as she cleaned and oiled her weapon.  
  
A shadow fell over her. She could tell by the size who it was.  
  
“Hard at work as always.” Joe’s finger made shapes on the smooth skin of the back of her neck: flames, skulls.

“Are you going to brand me?” Cal whispered.  
  
“Do I need to?”  
  
She shuddered, cold despite the sun. “I guess not.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cal gets into a lot of trouble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you are easily triggered, please read the tags and proceed with caution.

Cal didn’t like Miss Giddy.  
  
After Cal set one of Joe’s books on fire, Miss Giddy wasn’t fond of her, either.  
  
The History Woman had been droning on forever. Cal sat outside of the ring of girls who lived in the stultifying confines of the Vault. Cal understood they were "Wives.” They were soft and quiet and boring. They spent most of their time braiding each other's hair, watching Cal cautiously out of the corners of their wide eyes.  
  
Maus was seated in front of them all, drinking in Miss Giddy’s every word. There were so many words. Wordburgers, a dense meal of endless syllables that brought Cal’s chin lower, and lower, and lower until it finally touched her chest.  
  
“Young lady!”  
  
Cal’s head snapped up. Snickers tumbled from the girls.  
  
Miss Giddy put her fists on her hips. “Go stand in the corner. Maybe that will help you stay awake.”  
  
Cal cast about the round room, bewildered.  
  
“Over there.” Giddy pointed at two enormous stacks of books. Their lumpy spines touched at a rough ninety degree angle.  
  
Face burning, Cal did as she was told.  
  
Giddy’s endless drone resumed. Cal stewed. Stupid. She didn’t want to be here. She hadn’t asked to be here. She didn’t belong here. Neither did Maus.  
  
They simply had no choice. Ever since second Ma traitored Pa by secretly putting a bullet in her skull, Pa had been forced to bring both his girls on business. The greasy hole where they’d been stowed in Gas Town had been bad but at least they’d been left to themselves. She and Maus amused each other by playing Truths. Cal was Pa and Maus a prisoner. The rust-colored splatters on the floor served as scene settings for their imitated tortures.  
  
Listening to Miss Giddy was real torture.  
  
Cal’s fingers roamed restlessly through her pockets. The rough body of a homemade match caught their attention. Pa had taught her make matches one long afternoon as they sat in the supervisor’s garret, watching the Farm trucks go round and round the pit. He'd pulled a scrap of wood off the inside of the garret and held her hands steady while she used his big knife to split the wood into tiny pieces. Pa said matches could make the difference. You never knew when you'd need one to create warmth, light, or a distraction.  
  
She edged towards the books.  
  
There was a thump and a hollow clunk. The clacking of internal gears reverberated through the dome. Everyone’s ears popped as the room depressurized and blissfully, Miss Giddy’s voice died away.  
  
Uncle Joe swept in. He was dressed for a speech. Cal thought he looked about as chrome as any Wasteland man could, especially when compared to Pa's constant gritty dishevelment. The war club made an authoritative _thock!_ each time Joe took a step. Cal was surprised by how the other girls reacted. The entire room was a held breath. The younger girls were still as dead cars. The older ones sank into their shoulderblades. Even Maus had her head down.

“My treasures are doing well with their lessons?”  
   
Miss Giddy gave a curt nod. “Passably well, Immortan.”  
  
“And our guests?”  
  
“The younger one is attentive.” She cleared her throat. “The older one is having some trouble focusing.”  
  
Uncle Joe turned to Cal in her book-corner. The war club came down on the floor: _THOCK._   His blue eyes were icy. “You find Miss Giddy’s lesson boring?”  
  
“No, sir.”  
  
“Then why are you in this corner?”  
  
“It’s not really a corner, Uncle Joe.”  
  
Cal saw a glint of humor warm the cold beam of her uncle’s gaze.  
  
A silver curl of smoke drifted between them.  
  
The bellows behind Joe's head flapped as he drew in air, sniffing. He turned in a slow semicircle, then stopped. His free hand came up fast. One of the girls – the oldest – squealed in fear.  
  
Joe's hand shot past Cal and plucked a smoking book from the pile. After a quick glance at the cover – it read _“The Pearl”_ – he tossed it into the impluvium. It hissed and sank.  
  
“Your handiwork?” He spoke slowly.  
  
Cal was a tough little girl, but the war club in Joe’s hand looked mean and heavy. The faint scent of burning book curled through the airless room. She realized every last one of the girls were terrified of him and wondered if she should be, too. He didn’t look mad, but with the mask covering his face, it was hard to tell. Better to play it safe.  
  
“Sorry, Uncle.” She hung her head.  
  
Joe crouched down. Her grasped her chin with one dry hand and forced her to look at him. “Burning books is something we left behind in the Before Time, Cal. Knowledge is sometimes all that separates us from those Down Below. You don’t want to go Below, do you?”  
  
“No,” she said, voice small.  
  
“Of course you don’t.” He let go of her chin to stroke her head. His touch was heavy, his expression tolerant. “You mind Miss Giddy, my Callie. She was looking forward to teaching you and your sister. Girls like you need an education.”  
  
Miss Giddy murmured, “I’ll have the scouts look for a replacement book, Immortan.”  
  
Joe gave Cal one last indulgent pat, then swept back to the door in a billow of ivory skirting. He waved a hand carelessly at the History Woman. “Don't bother. I never liked Steinbeck, anyways.”  
  
  
  
  
_________________________________  
  
  
Joe was in the middle of a sentence when Rictus dashed from the Council chamber.  
  
Cal waited for the explosion that never came. Joe simply cleared his throat and resumed his lecture on why the Citadel needed to start collecting and raising livestock, even if it meant trading vehicle storage for pens.  
  
Unusual. But this Council was proving anything but typical.  
  
Cal, for one, was not standing in the back. She was up by the windows, on watch. An unknown vehicle of significant size had been spotted earlier, driving West to East under the camouflage of its own dust. It was big, it was functional and therefore, the Immortan wanted it. Cal and Rictus, the youngest and best sighted in the room, had been given the job of monitoring the Waste for its next appearance.  
  
The Immortan himself was in exceptional good humor. Word was that three of his seven wives were now pregnant. Lucky for Rictus, Cal thought, otherwise, his interruption would have gotten him a night’s imprisonment in the nearby pump closet.  
  
She turned back to the window. The interior of the room was reflected in the glass. She could see Joe, leaning into his speech, filling up the entire head of the table; Pa, chin in his hand, half-asleep; the People Eater, doodling in his ledger; and all the other chieftains, listening with fawning intent.  
  
All except for Jesbit Irondog. She sat at the far end, gnarled hands clasped over her washer-covered cuirass, clearly unimpressed by Joe's visions of animal husbandry.  
  
Jesbit had little use for civilization. She maintained the Citadel's southeast border by skinning alive anyone who dared cross it and had done so for a solid decade. Rumor had it she preferred to sleep seated on her bike, face down on the gas tank. It explained a lot.  
  
Cal grinned and squinted into the brightness.  
  
A smear a few miles out caught her attention. Dust devil or vehicle? Cal couldn't tell. She was just tall enough to reach the arm-mounted long-looker, shoved against the ceiling by Rictus before he'd bolted. Her hand shook as she adjusted the focus. This was her chance. She remembered Joe's words after the last Council, his hand a hot promise gliding up her thigh: _You need to earn your seat._  
  
The smear was moving. It was thick, but the shadow inside was thicker. A strange shape: long but not a tanker, boxy but not a transport. A flash of crimson, a wink of chrome.  
  
“I think–” Cal began just as Rictus barreled back into the room. A large, colorful book was clamped in one giant hand. He wrenched the glass away from her, nearly pulling it free from the ceiling. Dust and fasteners rained down.  
  
"Dad!" he bellowed.  
  
Pa bolted awake. The People Eater dropped his pen. Joe remained unbothered. “Yes, Rictus?”  
  
Rictus held up his book for all to see. On the page was a vehicle matching the shape in the dust. “I know what it is! It’s a fire truck!”  
  
  
  
  
______________________________  
  
  
“Fuk-ushima, he’s right,” Pa muttered.  
  
They were taking turns with the glass now. First Joe, now Pa. The rest of the Council waited at the table.  
  
“I want it whole,” Joe rumbled.  
  
“No thundersticks, then.”  
  
“Or harpoons. Or wires or caltrops or anything else. Undamaged. Chrome as the day it was made.”  
  
Joe stood next to Cal. She was sweating from excitement. Whether it was the idea of capturing the truck or Joe’s nearness, or both, she wasn’t sure. She didn’t care.  Joe encouraged her with a gentle push to look through the long-looker again. He kept his hand on her waist as she bent forward. Pa, returning to the table, did not notice when Joe's hand slid southward to give Cal's rump a firm squeeze.  
  
Jesbit did. She made a strangled sound of disgust.  
  
“Something amiss, Jesbit?” Joe spun. “Or have you an idea on how to capture what the desert's latest gift?”  
  
The female raider snorted. “Isolate and incapacitate the crew, as a start. ”  
  
“Obviously. But I want no shooting.”  
  
“Distract them, then. Draw them away.”  
  
Joe huffed into his mask. “If you possessed a vehicle this chrome, Jesbit, instead of those spit and baling wire shittraps you prefer, would you come away from it?”  
  
“No, I would not.” Jesbit was sour.  
  
Joe’s shout blasted through the chamber. “Then those people won’t, either!”  
  
His outburst startled Rictus. He dropped his picture book.  
  
Cal picked it up. She found the page with the fire truck. Instead of carrying fire, as its name implied, it carried water. A priceless resource in a fairly priceless vehicle. No wonder Joe wanted it. The telescope showed her the truck was stopped behind a low dune, crimson tail just visible.   
  
A thought began to form in her mind.  
  
“It will be a tall order,” Pa was saying. “Taking anything undamaged is always a challenge.”  
  
“Major, I keep you in milk and vegetables so you can solve such problems. I want that vehicle before it rolls into Buzzard territory and comes back to haunt us.”  
  
Cal took a big breath. “I have an idea.”  
  
“Who asked you, slut?”  
  
“What did you just call my daughter, Jesbit?” Pa stood up.  
  
Jesbit matched him, shoving out of her seat. “This room is filled with cripples, idiots and blind idolizers! And a slut who spends every session staring at–“  
  
The cocking of revolvers silenced them. Joe had a gun on both Pa and Jesbit. His expression was scoured of any good grace. “Kalashnikov, sit.” He shook the bigger gun at Jesbit. “You, I should kill for heresy, but I just had the floors washed. Go back to the border, Jesbit. I’ll keep you in water as long as you do your job and promise to never show your rusted cunt of a face here again. Out!”  
  
Jesbit backed towards the exit. “Fickle bastard,” she snarled.  
  
The Imperators slammed the door.  
  
Joe holstered his guns, shaking his head in disgust. Then he gestured towards Jesbit’s empty chair. “Sit down, Caliber. Tell me your idea. Make it good. I'm out of patience.”  
  
  
  
  
________________________________  
  
  
The new Gas Town warlord made them wait.  
  
The girlslaves huddled together, all scarred limbs and tear-stained cheeks. Cal's Imperators leaned on the stacks of ammunition, protective of the goods within. Cal wandered about in small circles, numb from painkillers but not numb enough to keep from fretting.  
  
She’d expected to wait a little – they were, after all, late – but this long?  
  
Trap had been forced to stay behind. His defection to the Bullet Farm meant certain death if he came within five klicks of Gas Town. The People Eater had never been one to share his population with other places. From what she’d heard, the new warlord was even more jealous of his assets. Trap might be annoying, but the last thing Cal wanted was for him to end up as a flesh flag decorating a big rig.  
  
She pressed her hands into the small of her back. There wasn't enough pain medicine in the world to dull her dread.  
  
Black smoke billowed over the courtyard. Its darkness magnified the throb of the refinery and the sorrow of the girlslaves. Cal held her breath. As the filthy air cleared, a figure emerged.  
  
The giant wore mechanicals on his back. He was shirtless and broad. Cal’s heart leapt against her better judgement.  
  
The gait was wrong. Rictus had been a lumberer; arms hanging loose, head low, chin weighed down by the bulk of his stupidity. This man came strutting: shoulders back, chin high, sighting down the length of his curving nose. Familiar, just in a different way.  
  
He stopped. The blood drops of his eyes gleamed under the refinery lights. A ten-inch codpiece jutted from his crotch, ready to impale anything and everything that got in his way. Over the thump of the derricks, Cal could hear the familiar wheeze of tormented breathing. Each child had been different from his father, but they’d all inherited the bad lungs.  
  
Cal greeted the warlord. “Hello, Scrotus,” she said.  
  
  
  
  
  
____________________________  
  
  
“Caliber, stay behind, please.”  
  
Cal drew up short. Council was filing out, speaking in hushed, excited tones. Joe had heard out her plan to capture the fire truck and found it worthy. He’d immediately sent Pa to the Garage to secure weapons for the pursuit vehicles and tasked Rictus with finding the Organic. Everyone had orders. Except for Cal.

A thrill skittered down her spine. Joe never kept anyone back after Council. He would always remain behind, alone, slumped into his mask, staring at nothing. Pa said he liked to think. Cal had always wondered about what.  
  
Looking at him now, she was fairly sure she knew.  
  
“You wish to discuss my plan further, Immortan?”

He grunted.  “Something to that effect. Now, shut that door and come here.”  
  
A thousand sensations burned through her veins as she approached him: trepidation, indecision, desire. He stood at the head of the table, leaning heavily on his hands. The bellows behind his head moved up and down rapidly with his sonorous breathing.  
  
Even though Cal was tall, the searing lust in Joe's flat gaze made him a giant to her.  
  
He surged forward. Cal cried out in fearful surprise. His strength was much greater than she expected. She was steered backwards until her rump hit the table. His hands, which up until now had been gentle, were iron clamps on her arms.  
  
“We started a conversation a few weeks ago, you and I,” he growled, the jutting teeth of the mask mere inches from her face. “There will be no interruption this time."  
  
“What if Rictus finds the Organic quickly?”  
  
“He won't."

"How can you be sure?"

"Because the Organic's at Gas Town.”  
  
Cal found it in herself to chuckle. It was just a small sound, but it kept the humanity between them for a few seconds longer. Just long enough for a shadow of affection to flicker across Joe's face. That glimpse of softness cooled her fear, allowing her desire to ignite into a roaring blaze between her legs. Cal reached forward and down. The loose fabric of Joe’s trousers did nothing to hide his prominent erection. She closed her hand around it. “I think we need to discuss this first.”  
  
“I agree,” he rumbled.  
  
She tightened her grip. His eyes rolled into the back of his head. Excitement surged through her as she realized the scale of what was in her hand.  
  
“Callie, you are a clever, clever girl,” he groaned. Cal nuzzled his chalky throat, tasting clay and salt. He released her arms and embraced her, their finery clanking together. It quickly frustrated them both. Joe grabbed her by the shoulders and spun her around. She went easily. A pleased grunt came from deep in his chest.  
  
Belts and bandoliers were unbuckled and dropped without ceremony. Behind her, Joe shoved her skirts to the side, pulling her trousers down with a very practiced tug. He then jammed his boot between her feet, sweeping left and right to spread her legs. Before Cal could even get her elbows on the table, Joe dropped his own trousers to press the hard rod of himself against her. One of his hands came around to her forehead. He pulled her head up, arching her back, the mask cold against her cheek.  
  
His deep voice was ragged. “You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to do this.”  
  
Then he thrust into her.  
  
She wasn’t ready. After all this time, after all the months of staring him down, her vest unbuckled and her loins moist with the anticipation of what he'd be like, she wasn't ready. Not for his size, not for his ferocity. Not for how he jammed his mask against her throat and hammered her with his cock. She yelped in pain and clawed her way across the table. Joe clapped a hand over her mouth and dragged her back. He used his weight to pin her down. Now she understood. She understood the soft girls in the Vault and why they went still when he entered. Why their eyes tracked his every move, why they shivered when he touched them. She understood and decided right then, that she, Caliber Kalashnikov of the Bullet Farm, was tougher than all of them combined.  
  
There was a victory in that thought. It made her muscles clench.  
  
Joe grunted as if kicked. “Oh, my Callie,” he snarled.  
  
Then he shredded her until she bled like she was a virgin again.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fixed a MAJOR typo at the end of this chapter that affects the plot - so if you read it before 8/4, I recommend re-reading the last section.

Cal sat primly in the back seat, hands clasped tight in her lap. Every rock and pothole they hit made cold pain shoot through her pelvis. She wondered how badly she was broken. Joe had shown her no mercy and she had asked for none. He had kept her face down against the Council table, slamming her over and over, the mask grinding a bruise between her shoulder blades. Now she sat aching and damp in the bouncing truck. She squirmed every time she remembered how Joe had moaned her name when he climaxed.

Pa leaned over the seat to look at her.

“You’re lucky,” he said.

Oh, fuku-hell, she thought, stomach plummeting through the floorboards. _He knows._

Pa said, “It’s been an interesting day, hasn’t it?”

Cal willed herself to be blank. Black spots of terror danced around the edges of her vision.

“Caliber, it’s not every day that someone can speak out of turn at Council and avoid ending up on the wrong end of the Immortan’s pistol.”

“I guess,” was all she could manage.

Her father made an exasperated sound. “Fuk-ushima, child, snap out of it! I’m not scolding you. This is a good thing!" He shifted so he was facing her fully. His expression confused her until she realized what she was seeing in him was excitement. "Caliber, I spoke to the Immortan before we left. He was in a very good mood. He’s willing to offer you point on executing your plan, as long as you do exactly as he specifies. _Exactly._ ”

The heat-haze of her relief was lifting; Pa's words slowly sank in. On point. Executing. Her.

“You’re not going to argue?”

“Why would I argue, Pa?”

Her father raised his eyebrows. “You are the same child of mine, are you not? The one who sees rules as things which must be broken?”

"I guess," Cal repeated.

Pa laughed at her bemusement, his guffaw genuine and hearty. He clapped her on the shoulder, and even though the touch was hard, she felt love in it. “My daughter, if you can pull this off, t’will be quite the shell in the bandolier of the Bullet Farm. We may finally take favor over Gas Town. It’s been a long time since we were first on the supply run stops. No more wilted lettuce, eh?” He wiped tears from his eyes and gave her shoulder a pleased pat.

Cal's smile was shaky. “Would I get to actually sit on Council, then?”

“Perhaps, if the Immortan wills it.”

The truck slammed over a rock. Her smile tumbled into a grimace.

Pa misread her expression. “Don't fret. You seem to be in his good graces at the moment.”

Good graces, indeed, she thought. She squirmed again, pressing her clasped hands between her knees.

Her father's fingers tightened on her shoulder. “One last thing, Caliber.”

“What, Pa?”

He gave her a firm shake. “If you do get to join Council, do me a favor. For the love of god and gunpowder, learn how to sit still.”

 

 

______________________________

 

Cal had to admit that Joe, despite all his vehicular exhibitionism, hadn’t gone so far as to have a throne.

Scrotus had.

The dais was an enormous sprocket, teeth sharpened to shining points. The throne bolted to it was a monolith made from a rectangular gas tank welded to an old gas pump. Heavy pipe fittings, covered by thin, puncture-riddled leather, served as armrests. Lumpy patterns stretched across the rests: pistons, hex bolts, engines and flames.

Scrotus, sprawling above Cal, was very disappointed.

“You’re short,” he said.

Cal did her best to be brave. She swept an unsteady hand towards the three cowering girlslaves. "That’s why we brought these. Something to cover the difference.  Until we get production back to capacity, of course.”

Scrotus wasn’t impressed. His muscular chest moved slowly up and down, the hissing of his respirator as narrow as his eyes. He made no move to rise. If he’d been Joe, he would have already been circling the girls, humming to himself while poking them with his war club. But Scrotus was not like his father. He was as flat and still as the Plains of Silence. His crushing attention solidified around Cal. She drew in a breath and, glad for the painkiller, forced herself to endure the endless grind of his gaze.

The derricks thumped away the time. The girlslaves moaned. No one moved.

Finally, Scrotus made a displeased noise low in his throat. “I don’t need weeping trinkets. I need explosives. Thermite. I’ve received none. You’re still short.”

Cal lowered her head. It was a deferent movement which served to hide her growing fear. “How else can we settle, then?”

Gripping the scars of those who had disappointed him, the warlord leaned forward. His smile was terrible. “A fine question. You and I can discuss it privately.”

 

 

______________________________

 

They tracked the fire truck for several days before making their move.

A skinny Citadel War Boy clung to her waist as Cal steered the bike through low hills. They were taking the long way around, flanking the truck crew by exploiting cuts in the landscape in order to intercept them before they headed out of range.

A mile in front of the truck’s camp, Cal swapped places with the War Boy. On her back was a sloshing water bladder. She’d traded her well-made clothing for rags and spent hours painstakingly pulling the casings from her long hair. Joe had insisted she carry no weapons. Cal couldn't remember the last time in her life when she hadn't been armed. She was riding into the unknown as good as naked.

Fires winked in the distance. Cal leapt off the bike and ran screaming towards the camp.

The War Boy gave chase. The rough helix of their approach was noted. Voices hailed them. Cal tripped on purpose, going down hard. The War Boy made a effort to drag her back, streaking her rags with the white dust covering his body. Cal kicked wildly. As she rolled to her knees, she saw several figures running towards them, long silhouettes of guns clear against the bright night sky.

The bike peeled off, zig zagging into the dark.

Under gunpoint, she was hustled into the camp. The crew chief, tall and unconcerned, ambled out of his tent.

“Well, well, what’s this now? Where’d you come from?”

“The north,” Cal panted.

The chief's eyes gleamed against the dark of his face. “Search her.”

Her rags were ripped into even smaller shreds. As she was spun about harshly, Cal searched the faces of those surrounding her. Hard faces. All men. Her stomach clenched. She was hoping for at least a woman or two.

“Unarmed.”

The chief snorted. “Not very smart, little moll, running away in the dark without nary a weapon on you.”

Cal agreed wholeheartedly. The only thing keeping her from sobbing with terror was the memory of Joe's counsel before she'd left. _No weapons will mean no harm,_ he'd murmured to her when Pa wasn't looking. _They'll never see it coming._

She held out the bladder. “Please help me. I have water. I can pay.”

The chief dismissed her offering with an casual gesture towards the looming form of the fire truck. “Keep it. We have plenty. You want to ride with us, you need to offer something better than water.” His eyes raked over her body. Cal shuddered in revulsion but not in surprise. This was another thing Joe had warned her about.

“I won’t be a burden,” she said quietly.

The chief hauled her forward by her rags. “Let’s see what you’re good for, then.”

Small price for a truck, Cal told herself, and went with him.

 

 

______________________________

 

Her first husband, the King Buzzard, laid one – just one – suppurating hand on her before she put a bullet in his skull.

Her second, the Scag, thought he would be clever and forbid her access to weapons. Cal left him face down in his dinner a month later, a bone knitting needle jammed in his ear.

Pa had promised a grand punishment if she murdered a third. So when the Perentie came calling, she tried to be good. The raider was from the cold South and had been courting Pa's favor for years. It wasn't until he showed up dragging a long gun behind his battle rig that Pa paid him any attention. The gun, a warped monstrosity that at one point had rolled on two wheels, carved deep ruts into the carefully maintained dirt of the Farm yard. Pa paid the damage no mind. He’d run shaking hands over the broken thing, breathless with obvious love, while Cal stood aghast.

I have the same value as a non-functional weapon, she remembered thinking.

She loved and feared her Pa so she tried. At first, the Perentie also tried. He made sure his wife had extra blankets for the cold desert nights and turned a blind eye when she insisted on combing her wind-torn hair instead of tanning hides with the other women. It was when she demanded water for bathing that he snapped.

She’d run away before he’d beaten her too badly.

Now, she came staggering back through the Farm gates, footsore from her journey. The moon was high, the sky clear. Her ragged shadow crawled broken before her, sun-sharp and unforgiving. I'm a Wretch now, she thought, beyond miserable. The guards, recognizing her, saluted. She ignored their warm, surprised greetings as she limped towards the main building. 

A sharp snapping sound made her look up. The black and red pennants of the Mackinaw streamed across the night bright sky.

Cal groaned aloud. The Immortan was the last person she wanted to see. However, she was not about to endure another night filthy and cold, and so went banging into Pa’s study.

Joe and Pa were not yet drunk enough to fire indiscriminately at an intruder, but they did level their pistols at her in surprise.

Cal dumped her shredded coat on the floor, revealing the collection of bruises and brush burns blotching her arms and encircling her neck.

Pa's gun shook in his hand. “What was it this time? You didn’t want to mend his clothes? Cook a meal? Repair his guns?”

“He wouldn’t let me bathe.”

Joe, hair shiny and clean, made a pained sound and looked away.

Pa holstered. His voice was flat. “So you killed another one.”

“No. I gave him back as good as he gave me, then I ran.”

“Small miracle, then, I guess.”

Cal looked back and forth between the two men. She desperately wanted Pa to come to her defense. He had, after all, been the indirect cause of her current sorry state. She wanted him to rage and swear and burn for justice against what had been done to her. All he did was turn to Joe and say, “I’m not giving back that howitzer.”

“I don’t give a fuck what you do with the howitzer, Kalashnikov,” Joe snarled. His eyes, unlike Pa's, held the fire Cal so longed to see. They burned with fierce disgust. “That Perentie fool beat you, Callie? For wanting a bath?”

“Yes, Immortan,” she hiccuped. “A bath. And blankets. Those were an issue, too. I wanted too many blankets at night.”

Joe’s anger pooled in the furrow of his brow and balanced on the tense set of his broad shoulders. He rounded on Pa. “Blankets. Bathing. What kind of alliance were you going to get from some sand rat that can’t even provide his wife – your _daughter_ – with the basics of a civilized life?”

"He promised a functional howitzer when she bore him a child.”

Joe’s eyes snapped to Cal. “Did he breed you?”

Dirty and used, Cal burst into tears. “Yes, several times. But I bled anyway. That’s why I wanted to bathe.” 

“My poor Callie.” Joe got up and came to her. He pulled a rag from his trouser pocket, and with quite a show of ceremony began to carefully wipe the blood from her cheeks. Cal longed to bury her face in his neck, but with Pa there, all she could do was stand still and cry even harder.

Pa grunted, “I’ll send for the Organic.”

Joe gave Pa a caustic stare. “No, thank you, Major. I've got mine with me.” Cal allowed him to turn her this way and that, leaning into his touch as much as she could. “Go get your bath, now, Cal. Then go to the kitchens. My Organic will meet you there and fix your face, right as rain.”

She went out. Her soul was divided into equal parts painful abandonment and molten satisfaction. As she clicked the door shut, Joe’s low voice seeped under the door.

“Do yourself a favor, Kalashnikov," he growled. "Stop trying to marry her off. It just doesn’t work.”

 

______________________________

 

When the moon began to set, draping the desert night in a long bolt of freezing velvet, the Citadel bikes charged the fire truck camp.

Cal was lying awake. As soon as she heard the first engine cough, she went scrambling from the chief’s tent towards the truck before anyone even knew what was happening. A few bikes blasted through the camp with headlights bright, cutting a blinding swath between crew and vehicle. Whoops and cries rang through the cold air, coming from all directions and drawing the attention of the confused crew. Cal found the ladder to the top of the tanker and clambered up.

At the fill hatch, she unslung the water bladder from her shoulder. The hatch was simple and opened easily with a tug. She uncorked the skin and dumped the entire thing into the tank.

It only took her a few seconds. Then she replaced the hatch and jumped down. She allowed herself to be captured by a kinsman and spirited off into the night.

 

 

 

______________________________

 

When the sun rose, Cal was back with her War Party, wrapped in two blankets and peering at the truck’s camp through a spyglass. Imperators from both the Citadel and the Bullet Farm flanked her, tense with waiting.

The Citadel Imperator said, “So, what now?”

“We wait.”

“For what?”

Cal squinted into the glass. Any time now. When there was movement, she handed the glass over and pointed. “For that.”

Figures were staggering away from the truck. They made crazy circles in the dirt, clutching at their throats and at each other. The chief ran up, offering those in distress his canteen. It was batted away. Soon, every last one of them were down on the ground, darkening the dirt with froth. Cal didn’t need the spyglass to appreciate their suffering. She was raw from how the chief had used her, and was glad to see him writhe.

“Fuku-hell.” The Citadel Imperator lowered the glass. “What’s happening?”

“They’re dying,” Cal replied. “I poisoned their water.”

 

 

______________________________

 

“Stop here.” Cal spoke from the litter on which she lay. “Bring the Organic out.”

The truck ground to a halt. They were barely within Bullet Farm territory. Cal didn’t dare show herself to the Farm proper. The workers would be too frightened. Trap would lose his mind. Maus, too.

It took a long time for the Organic to come. Cal was vaguely aware of her men murmuring prayers at her side, brows against thumbs. The whispers to V8 brought her some comfort; she had never not been able to be repaired, and there was no reason to think this time would be any different.

She slid in and out of consciousness, pain and Scrotus' triumphant face blending together in rutted tracks of agony.

The world seared back into focus with a sharp bite of ammonia. Cal jerked up. She clawed at the Prime Imperator who sat by her side. He had been assigned to her most of her adult life and caught her searching hand, holding it carefully, as to not cause her more pain. That hand had been badly broken the previous year. The Imperator leaned down, gaunt face lined with respectful concern. “Organic is here now, Miss Cal. We’ll keep things running while you recover. No worries.”

“No Trap and no Maus,” Cal begged him. “Keep them away.”

“Just like last year,” the Prime replied with a nod. “I remember.”

“No Furiosa, either.”

His expression was knowing. “I don’t think we’ll need to worry about that this time. Now lie back and let Organic make you chrome again. V8 be with you.”

Her crew cleared out. The back of the truck suddenly felt very empty.

The Organic looked at her for a long time before he pulled on his gloves.

“I hope it was worth it,” he said.

“Gas Town debt paid in full,” Cal told him weakly.

He shook his head in silent disagreement over her choice, then began his examination. "Couple broken ribs, cheek's busted, nose is broke again, couple missing teeth, bruises everywhere. Let's see the rest of it." When the Organic peered between her legs, he whistled low through his teeth. “Now that’s going to take some repairing.”

“How bad?”

“I need to poke about your ladygears and get the lay of the land before I answer that. Right now, I can't tell what's supposed to be where." He cracked his knuckles. "Mind my hands, and don’t be kicking me.”

She didn't kick him, but she did arch and scream when he found the lump in her belly. She passed out again.

When she came to, he was laying out tools with which to stitch her wounds. “When’d you bleed last?” he asked.

“Don’t remember. Couple months, at least.” Despite everything, she found herself hoping. “Is it a baby?”

“Lemme have another feel.” The Organic went more carefully this time, fingers pressing towards each other from inside and outside. He did not directly touch the mass but felt everywhere around it. Cal was surprised by how far he ranged around her torso and groin. She bit her lip to stay conscious.

The Organic pulled his hands away and was silent.

"Organic." Cal tried to sit up, but the pain was too much. "Talk."

He would not look at her. “Ain’t no baby,” he said slowly.

“Then what is it?”

He shook his head sadly. “Nothing I can fix.”


	12. Chapter 12

The first thing Cal learned while on Council was jealousy.  
  
Everyone was waiting. They had been milling for an hour, killing time comparing weapons and trading Wasteland gossip. When the Organic Mechanic oozed into the chamber, all heads turned toward him, expectant.  
  
“Boss be along shortly,” he advised. “Had urgent business upstairs to attend to.”  
  
Cal frowned. She stood bored and alone, near where Corpus reclined in his hanging chair. When the little man snorted at the Organic’s announcement, she peered over at him. A crooked smile slithered across his face.  
  
“Servicing the stable,” Corpus said with a wink.  
  
Cal knew, of course. She’d known from her youngest days. The women in the Vault were Wives, and Wives were for breeding. They were the most well-known secret in the Wasteland. Cal had seen it all: new Wives delivered, dust-covered and a-weep with terror; Wives called to the Immortan’s private chambers, pliant but trembling; Wives returned from their duties, disheveled, whites wrenched about their bodies, eyes rusted over with anger and pain. She'd watched from her seat as Giddy’s part-time student, uninterested in the weeping and angry over being kept from the Garage or the Range.  
  
It was different now. The thought of Joe attending to his prizes made a green feeling, like slime inside a canteen, come prickling along her sweaty hairline.  
  
“Jealous, are we?” Corpus traded his smile for seriousness. “Come over here."  
  
The Imperator who served him turned away to give them privacy.  
  
“It’s not too late for you,” Corpus said.  
  
Cal blinked in surprise.  
  
“Just leave. Say you feel ill. Go back to your truck and your Farm and don’t return.”  
  
“Why would I do that?”  
  
“Because you aren’t going to get what you want out of this,” he warned. “I promise you, you won’t. Not in the long run.”  
  
She furrowed her brow. “I’ll decide that for myself.”  
  
The little man clucked his tongue. “Don’t be naive. No one decides anything here other than _him_. Look at how little it took for Jesbit to be dismissed. You don’t have anywhere close to her kind of collateral.”  
  
Cal kept her expression forcibly pleasant. “I’ll stay useful.”  
  
“Easier said than done, with him.”  
  
“Perhaps.” Her voice was stiff. “At least I’m not trapped in that Vault, dressed in tissues and afraid of anything bigger than a War Pup. Who have _they_ killed? I’ve many in my name for him already. Even a cut throat.  
  
“A throat, eh?”  
  
“Yes. With my own knife and no one to guide me. Did it neat. Ear to ear. Smeg sounded like a canteen being dumped out.  
  
Corpus raised his eyebrows at that.  
  
Joe’s laughter boomed from the hallway.  
  
The little shoulders shrugged. “Maybe you’ll be all right,” Corpus said thoughtfully. He indicated the handlebars of the chair. “Give me a push towards the table, would you? He’s going to be lazy as sin and I expect I’ll have to manage everything today. You can stand on the other side of him. If he starts snoring, give him a poke.”  
  
  
  
____________________________________  
  
  
The stylus in her hand shook. Cal did her best to write neatly, but her skill had never been great. A hundred klicks lay between her brain, the tip of her pen, and the paper spread on the table.  
  
_Maus, I’m sorry…_ she began.  
  
Pa’s Buntline lay close by. She stroked the long, cool barrel then fiddled with the scrap of the Peacemaker hanging around her neck. All the times Pa had come home ventilated swam across her memory; him bleeding and cursing yet never once missing a beat, the unmoving fulcrum on which the entire Bullet Farm balanced. She was nowhere as bad off. She had no excuse. No holes to speak of, other than the gaping one where her heart had once been.  
  
She crossed out what she’d written and tried again.  
  
_Dear Trap, please take care of Maus, she is not a bad sister and she always thought you were nice…_  
  
That wouldn’t work, either. Frustrated, Cal balled up the paper and threw it into the corner, where several other scraps slowly uncurled.  
  
There was bowl of fresh fruit on the table. The Citadel delivery had come that morning. She’d met the rig with two dozen crates of fine brass and some of the best thundersticks the Farm had ever turned out. The loan from the Sisters was paid as promised. The Farm was clean slate. All was in balance again.  
  
Except it wasn't.  
  
She picked at an orange. The oranges had always been Joe’s favorite. “Keep your teeth healthy,” he’d advised, pressing them into her hands one time after he’d had her down in the dirt of the Garden. They’d been laughing at the muddy mess they’d made of each other. The dirt stains had never quite come out of the knees of his trousers.  
  
Cal closed her eyes. Sweet taste, sweeter memories. He’d pulled her to his breast underneath all that wet greenery, and for a moment, she’d thought he’d been about to tell her he loved her.  
  
She picked up the stylus and selected a smaller scrap of paper. Words came faster now, as they were only for herself.  
  
_I could have done it. I could have gotten them back. They trusted me. They still do. They think I’m one of them. I would have run them down and returned them to you. Even after everything that happened, I still would have done it._  
  
She put down the pen and re-read her words, thinking deeply.  
  
Many years before, Giddy had lectured about balance. Three dots were on the blackboard, labeled “Citadel,” “Bullet Farm” and “Gas Town.”  Lines connected them, forming a triangle. “You cannot move or change one point without influencing the others,” she’d said. “Everything is interconnected.” She’d erased Gas Town. The shape hung open. “Destroy one and the balance is lost. A new shape might be possible, but it will never be the same as the original.”  
  
Nothing would ever be the same.  
  
Cal added two more lines at the very bottom of her paper.  
  
_Joe, why did you have to go after them yourself?_  
  
_I can't do this without you._

 

 

  
________________________________  
  
  
  
The second thing Cal learned on Council was cruelty.  
  
Corpus’ prediction that Joe would be worn out from his earlier activities was wrong. Joe quickly became irritated by their nearness and snapped at them both. Corpus was wheeled to the window where he could observe from a distance. Cal slunk to Jesbit’s former spot.  
  
“What are you doing?”  
  
Cal froze, her hand on the back of the chair. She slowly faced Joe. “I’m taking my seat.”  
  
“Did I say you could?”  
  
“No, but–“ Her voice died away. The faces in the room were as cold as the Immortan’s voice. She cast to Pa for help, but he was flipping his shell back and forth across his knuckles with assiduous focus. “But the fire truck–“  
  
“What about the fire truck, Caliber?”  
  
“I thought–”  
  
Someone barked laughter.  
  
Cal’s grip tightened on the back of the chair. She was bewildered. The execution of her plan to capture the truck had been flawless. Not a bullet fired. The vehicle delivered intact. No casualties to the Citadel, aside from the temporary damage she’d incurred mollifying the chieftain into inattention. Anger flared in her breast. “Doesn’t it count?”  
  
The warlord stretched, fingers laced over the buckle of his belt. He raised his eyebrows in query. “Doesn’t what count?”  
  
“What I did!!” Cal cried. “To get that truck!”  
  
Joe made a contemptuous noise into his mask. He followed it with an expansive gesture which managed to come off as wholly dismissive. “Come now. Don’t get so excited.”  
  
“Pa! You saw! Tell him! I limped for a week.”  
  
Pa flinched but still did not look up from his shell.  
  
“No one forced you to do what you did.” Joe absently fiddled with the chains dangling from his breastplate; lifting them up and dropping them so they clinked against each other. The sound chipped corners into the tense atmosphere of the room. “Using yourself was a rather obvious tactic, if I might say. You’re lucky they were… interested.”  
  
Cal found herself spluttering. “I can’t believe… You told me… I was successful! That’s what matters. I brought that truck back chrome, just like you wanted!”  
  
Joe shrugged.  
  
Cal stood open mouthed and shaking. Had her efforts been for nothing? She searched for any scrap of interest in the man seated at the head of the table. No acknowledgement. No affection. Not even any lust. Just… flat boredom.  
  
“You seem to be expecting something?” he prompted.  
  
That did it. Blind rage loosed her tongue. “I’m expecting a seat on this schlang-sucking Council, that’s what!” she shouted.  
  
Joe sat back in his chair as if pushed. The others stood. The rock rider chief on Cal’s left sprang up with aggression. Something about his movement triggered years of training burned into the deep whorls of her brain. Her right hand darted under her vest to re-emerge with a tiny derringer. Before anyone could react, she shot the man in the guts. His eyes widened in surprise as he sank to his knees, clutching his side.  
  
Cal grabbed his chair and sat down. “Well?” She pointed at the injured man. “What about that? Does that count?”  
  
No one moved, save for the People Eater, who flipped through his ledger with interest.  
  
Finally, Joe broke the standoff. He leaned forward, peering at the moaning rock rider while Cal throttled the sides of her seat with bloodless knuckles. His bored expression resolved into one of dark satisfaction. Blue eyes lingered on hers, a mild spark of interest now visible in their cruel depths. It salved her fear somewhat. “Now, Callie, relax,” he soothed. “No need to be so upset. Put your little gun away and calm yourself. You’ve made your point.“

  
  
  
______________________________  
  
  
Sometimes Maus left messages before she disappeared. Little strips of paper, rolled up tight and stuffed in spent brass, left on the dinner table or in front of the main door. Only a few words, sometimes angry, sometimes sad, sometimes just strange.  
  
Pa saved the notes. Cal saved the casings.

  
  
  
________________________________  
  
  
The third thing she learned that day was treachery.  
  
The rock rider died. Joe had just finished referring to the fire truck as a “rolling baptismal font” when the man’s head hit the table next to Cal’s elbow. She was so exhausted from the experience of earlier that she barely jumped.  
  
Council was dismissed shortly after. Weary, she dragged behind her father as they left the upper levels, and soon was far back from the group.  
  
A voice, hollow and hungry and red, rang out behind her. “You. Bullet Farmer’s daughter.”  
  
Cal turned around.  
  
The People Eater lurched forward. The wide ledger was in his hands, open and flapping. He held it out, shoving a pen at her as well. She took it. The relic’s barrel was silky and elegant, albeit clammy. She shuddered.  
  
“Sign.” He pointed to a blank spot on the page.  
  
“What is it?”  
  
“It’s the Council balance sheet.”  
  
Cal peered at the two columns of labeled numbers. So many. Rows and rows of them. She could not read his spidery writing. Her head swam. “What does it say?”  
  
“It's just accounting.”  
  
“Why do I have to sign?”  
  
“Procedure. The Immortan left too quickly this time. You are Bullet Farm Council now. Your mark will do.”  
  
Pen heavy in her hand, Cal hesitated.  
  
“Just do it. It’s normal.”  
  
For the first time in her life, the dull grind of the mine seemed preferable to being at the Citadel. The tornado of the morning’s drama had scoured away her typical feisty energy; all she wanted to do was lie down in the dark in her room back at the Farm and sleep. For a long time.  
  
She scribbled her name.  
  
The People Eater took back his pen and snapped the ledger closed. His smile split his lip, causing a little runnel of blood to spill down his chin. Air clattered behind his filigreed nose. “That rock rider owed me for a delivery of guzz. Now that he’s dead, I’m short on my balance. Everything needs to tie out. Since you shot him and Joe let him die, one of you owes me. I’ll let you work out who pays between yourselves.”  
  
Cal gaped in shock.  
  
The People Eater laughed at her. “Tell Joe I'll take it in milk.”  
  
  


  
_______________________________  
  
  
“How long?” Pa came charging across the room as Cal laid the platter of greens down. She turned to run but he caught her. Her father might be an old man now, but he was used to moving daily under fifty pounds of casings and bandoliers.  Unencumbered, he was as fast as a Wretch sneaking water from a leaky pipe.  
  
“How long, Caliber?” he howled in her ear, winding his hand in her braids to keep her still.  
  
Cal felt his spittle fleck her cheek. How had he found out? She’d made all her payments this month. Water to the Imperators, extra greens to the Blackthumbs, and a pound of gunpowder to the Mechanic who’d repaired her after Joe’s last unexpected assault in the Citadel garage. Everyone was paid. Who had she missed?  
  
The cold steel of Pa’s gun pressed against her jaw.  
  
“I will ask once more,” her father hissed. “How… long… has it been going on?”  
  
“What does it matter?” Cal replied.  
  
“You admit it?”  
  
The barrel of the pistol dug into her chin. Cal narrowed her eyes. She knew he wouldn’t pull the trigger. If he did, he’d have Joe to answer to, and that was a reckoning no one wanted.  
  
“I’m a grown woman, Pa.”  
  
The barrel pressed harder. _“You’re my daughter.”_  
  
“Who told you? There’s a scag I need to kill, obviously.”  
  
Pa shook her by her braids. “Another bullet for your face?”  
  
They tussled. Cal spotted a letter, lying open at Pa’s end of the table. The single sheet fluttered in the slight breeze from the ventilation system.  
  
Who in fukushima wrote letters anymore?  
  
With all her considerable strength, Caliber turned her head and spat. Her father recoiled, losing his grip on her collar. It gave her just enough time to vault over the table and scoop up the paper. She was not the only one who could move like lightning when not wearing the finery of her station.  
  
The writing of the letter was in a tiny, perfect hand. She recognized it instantly.  
  
“Miss Giddy,” she hissed.  
  
  
  
  
  
________________________________

  
The last, and fourth thing she learned was wrath.  
  
The Bullet Farm convoy never even made it out of the Garage. A crowd of thunderstick-bearing War Boys blocked their way before the sunlight could touch the hoods of their vehicles. Pa, fretting with his shell again, didn’t seem surprised. When the side door was ripped open and Cal hauled out by her kit straps, he palmed the shell with a snap and hollered, “Just don’t kill her! I need her to run the Farm.”  
  
She was hauled, struggling and spitting, up to the Vault. Joe waited inside, hulking in a shaft of sunlight, all skull-teeth and dark shadows. Giddy and several Wives peeked out from the doorway at the back, frightened eyes wide.  
  
Cal was in trouble. As she’d been dragged Up Top, how much had been the question. Now, faced with Joe’s glare and crimson throat, she knew.

Plenty.  
  
The warlord rushed forward. Her captors thrust her at him. He caught her, thumb pressing down hard on the back of her hand to bend her wrist up in an agonizing grip. She was steered towards the lessons niche, immobilized and whimpering. Joe slammed one of the simple wooden chairs down in front of the blackboard, then shoved her into it. “Sit!”  
  
He went to the blackboard and scribbled. “Read!”  
  
She tried. _“Caliber Kalashnikov is a…”_ The rest was undecipherable. The letters were long, thin loops, tied with ribbons, similar to what had been in the People Eater’s ledger. Instead of tiny and spidery, the Immortan’s writing was monstrously jagged with his breathless rage.  
  
“Well?”  
  
Cal’s eyes filled with tears. “I can’t, Joe. I can’t read the rest.”  
  
There was silence, broken by a crisp snap as he broke the piece of chalk he was holding. Joe slowly placed both halves on the tray, precisely, with great care. He put his back to her, resting his fingers lightly on the tray. The bellows behind his head pulsed in a slowing cadence, as if he was calming. There was, however, nothing calm in the deadly rumble of his voice. “You want to sit on Council, and yet, you can’t read.”  
  
“Print. I can read print,” Cal said weakly.  
  
“A fine skill, if my colleague kept a ledger that–“ he turned and snarled, _“was fucking printed!”_  
  
His shout was loud enough to rattle dust off the top of the blackboard.  
  
Cal recoiled, babbling, “I’m sorry, so sorry, I’ll pay the debt so you don’t have to–“  
  
“Shut up.” Joe fixed her with an icy glare. His hands kept flexing into fists, uncurling, then curling again. “Just shut up and listen. You will come here twice a week. Minimum. Take your lessons with Giddy. I’ll expect a progress report at the end of each. You have one month to learn how to read script, or else you’re off Council. You cost me today. I’ll not have that again.”

Cal could hold back her tears no longer. Hot trails of shame burned down her tanned cheeks.  
  
Joe made a disgusted sound. “You’re all the same.”  
  
The Vault door slammed behind him with a monstrous clang.  
  
Cal folded into herself. It took a little while before she realized someone was near.  
  
“Hush, now, dear, it’s all right. He’s gone.” Miss Giddy crouched before her, scribbled face soft with sympathy.  “Did he hurt you?”  
  
Cal’s hand throbbed, but her heart hurt far worse. “No,” she whispered.  
  
“Good.” The old woman stood and went to the blackboard. She quickly erased what Joe had written.  
  
“Wait… what did it say?”  
  
Giddy’s smile was kind. “Nothing worth reading, dear. Now, what did they say Before: no time like the present, eh? Go grab a tablet and a chalk.” She looked over Cal’s shoulder towards the room in the back. “Girls, come out. Bring some milk and what’s left of lunch for Miss Caliber. I think she had a hard time this morning. Let’s all practice our cursive writing today. We’ll start with the letter ‘A’.”


	13. Chapter 13

The argument was still going. Cal pulled her thin pillow over her head, but the crow-down did little to muffle the shouting.  
  
“Mauser! I need you here!”  
  
“Eat _schlanger_ , Pa!”  
  
Maus had been gone for weeks. Her appearance at the Farm tonight was poorly received. Pa was in no mood for charity. He'd been spending long days repairing the mangled grinders blown out of the Powder Mill when the explosion happened. The replacement part trades had cost him his beloved, non-functional howitzer. Maus was on the hook for it all. On her watch, the saltpeter and sulfur on deck had co-mingled and exploded. She then made matters historically worse by vanishing without so much as an apology.  
  
The only good thing about the whole situation was Pa was now completely out of bullets.  
  
Cal could hear her father clattering about. “I can’t do this with just Cal!”  
  
“You don’t need me. You’ve never needed me. I’m an afterthought. _An accident.”_  
  
“Child, please…”  
  
“Don’t start with that, Pa! I’m seventy six hundred days old.”  
  
“Mauser, how many times do I have to tell you, we count in years in this household!”  
  
“I haven’t been part of this household for almost five years then!”  
  
Cal got up, pulling her smock down over bruised and scraped knees. The last thing she wanted was to reveal just how she’d been distracting the Immortan from the situation at the Farm.  
  
The shouting continued as she padded down the hall.  
  
“Why did you even come back?” Pa was hollering. His voice was tight with anxious rage.  “You’re a little half-wit feral, just like your mother! Thanks to you, we’ve been halted in production the entire time you’ve been gone. We are short on all our trades!”  
  
“Good!”  
  
“I’m beginning to think the Immortan is right. He calls you my ‘liability.’”  
  
“I don’t care what that crazy smeg thinks about me.”  
  
Cal heard scrabbling footsteps and knew they were in the kitchen now. She eased closer, slipping against the doorframe to peer into the long room.  
  
Maus and Pa had the heavy table between them. Her sister was a collection of Buzzard rags and Gas Town leathers, all covered by a delicate woven shawl. She shed dust as she kept distance between herself and the bristling menace that was their father.  
  
“Don’t you dare speak ill of the Immortan,” Pa growled.  
  
Maus bared her teeth. “You’re such a fool.”  
  
“You’re the fool, Mauser! Do you have any idea what life would be like if it wasn’t for him?”  
  
“It would be better!” Maus slapped the table top. “He’s poison, Pa! Poison! I make sure every tribe I meet knows the truth.”  
  
“If he heard you, he’d skin you alive.” Pa leveled a finger at her. _“And I’d let him.”_  
  
“That doesn’t surprise me,” Maus spat. “You’d probably let him root you, too, if he wanted, eh?”  
  
They tangled. Cal, horrified, leaped into the fight, taking blows across her shoulders and back. She pushed them both apart. “Stop, both of you! What good will it do the Farm if you kill each other?”  
  
“It wouldn’t matter!” Her sister wrenched backwards. “You run this place. All Pa does is haul that disgusting torture chassis around for Joe–“  
  
“I keep the balance! I am the one who finds the truth!”  
  
“You couldn’t find your way out of an ammo can with the lid off!”  
  
Pa might have been out of bullets but Cal had a few and he knew it. With righteous vitriol, he lunged for the gun tucked in her belt. Cal's elbow connected with Pa's wrist just in time as Maus spun away. His shot went wide, shattering the kitchen window instead of her sister’s skull. Unventilated, Maus hoisted herself up onto the sill, glaring angry rebellion at both of them. A few crumbs of glass glittered down to the floor as her kicking legs disappeared into the indigo night. Mist came rolling in to fill the small space she left behind.  
  
“Fuk-ushima!” Pa spat. “I’m going after her.”  
  
“No, you’re not, Pa!”  
  
“She needs to learn–“  
  
“She’s learned plenty. And she’s right. I can run the Farm without her help.”  
  
Cal saw the weight of the Wasteland sit down on her father’s wrinkled brow and knew. As soon as she left him, he would drift to the motor pool to sit in the Peacemaker, pickling her sister’s words with the rotgut he kept in the cockpit. The morning would find him passed out on the firing rests, fog-dew curling his hair, slurred regrets tumbling off his lips.

He slumped against the wall. “She's right. You don’t need me. You haven’t needed me for a long time, Cal.”  
  
“That’s not true at all.” Cal grasped his shoulders with her strong hands, as if that would help hold the pieces of their lives together. “The Farm might not need you two, but I still do. I always will.”  
  
  
  
___________________________  
  
  
Screams drifted thin and shrill over the camp. They fit neatly within the bands of darkness separating the scattered stars overhead. Cal blinked up into that never ending space and tuned her ears to other, lower sounds. An Imperator’s gurgling snores. The scrape of a heavy rasp dragging over metal. The groans of a dying War Boy. Joe’s soft, inward humming.  
  
He saw that she was awake. The tune died in his throat.  
  
“Your father’s working late tonight,” the warlord said.  
  
More sounds of torture pealed across the bluff.  
  
“He must have a tough one on the axle.” Cal sat up, pulling her blanket tight around her shoulders.  
  
“It was a good day,” Joe told her.  
  
Indeed it had been. The feral pack from Jesbit’s old territory had finally been brought under control. They’d run, and run hard, but it hadn’t mattered. By mid-afternoon, Pa was lapping at their heels in the Peacemaker, driving them towards the old riverbed with its many blind turns.  
  
Cal and her crew had been early out, waiting beyond one such turn. As soon as the ferals passed, she called down the Ploughboys. Harpoons flew. Thundersticks disabled the cars, bullets disabled the drivers. Women and children were separated, herded together and kept in a makeshift pen formed of dirt bikes until the Immortan came up from the rear. Those without lumps were claimed. The rest were deemed scrap. The healthy realized the tall, tattooed woman was not sympathetic and began to wail. One burly feral, supercharged by the panic, broke the grip of his War Boy captor. He came howling across the churned dirt at Cal and died at the end of her pistol. She spiked his head on the front of her crew’s Ploughboy.  
  
Cal smiled at the warlord.  “We got some good ones. Full-lifes.”  
  
“Thanks to the Bullet Farm.”  
  
“Mmm.” Up on top of the Mack, they could observe without being observed. “So, what’s next?”  
  
Joe’s shifted heavily under his armor, uncomfortable. “The Immortan returns victorious. The dead will be gifted to the Wretched. Water, and an invocation.”  
  
“God this and V8 that, yes?”  
  
He jerked forward, indignant. Cal inched away, not too fast, mindful of his hands. Angharad was right. It had gone to his head. All the years of it: the fervor of the War Boys; the adoration of the Wretched; the girls thrown at the platform by desperate mothers who wanted their children lifted up to a better life. The plenty when all else scrabbled for a scrap of garbage and a rag to wrap around a sunburned head.   
  
A spiraling shriek followed by a bark of satisfaction cracked across the night.  
  
“Your father must have gotten what he wanted.” Joe settled back with a grunt.  
  
Cal gave him a moment longer to cool. “Don’t be cross, Immortan.”  
  
Joe’s resentful expression emptied itself into the spaces between the stars. He turned away, regarding the angular shape of the Peacemaker and the more ragged torture chassis. He was so hard to predict now. Maybe it was his constant pain. Maybe it was something else. The tired drag of his breathing was heavy as the bodies being tossed to the ground by her father's Imperators. Carefully, Cal rose to her knees and eased one arm across his armored shoulders, hand slipping under the cascade of his hair to deftly adjust the respirator’s airflow. His next breath was easier.  
  
“Like you said, it was a good day,” she soothed.  
  
The jutting teeth of the mask brushed against her temple and stayed there. Cal’s heart twisted in her breast.  
  
He sought out her hand. His grip was limp. Gloomy, he muttered, “Good days are becoming a rare commodity, indeed.”  
  
  
  
______________________  
  
  
The prisoner was begging. For what, Cal couldn’t tell. Pa had clipped off the tip of his tongue, so the man’s words were full of blood.  
  
The sisters had heard tortures before but had never come to watch. This time was different. A massive War Party had bullied up to the Farm gates at sundown, honking and revving and screaming for entry. At the head of the pack was Uncle Joe, Rictus at his side. Both of them sported new respirators. Rictus wore his like a backpack while Joe’s was an impressive maw of ivory teeth.  
  
Cal thought they both looked very shine. Maus was more interested in the prisoners. The two girls followed the group inside at a safe distance, slipping into the Chamber of Truths unseen before the torture ever began.  
  
They huddled in a ill-smelling cupboard in the back of the room.  
  
“How’s he supposed to answer if he can’t talk?” Maus whispered.  
  
Cal shushed her.  
  
Ten men stood round a stained and rusted dentist’s chair. In the chair was the prisoner. Pa circled it slowly. His step was heavy under the weight of his brass. The cascade of casings fell from the crown of his head to the toes of his boots. In his right hand, serrated shears dripped blood. In his left, he held what he had removed from the man’s mouth.  
  
He thrust the bit of meat at the terrified man. “A small price to pay for your life, this. Now, find the truth and you will live. Tell us about the seeds.”  
  
The sisters turned to each other with brows raised.  
  
“We got them from…“ The prisoner’s words drowned in crimson bubbles. Uncle Joe leaned forward. Rictus leaned, too, but in the wrong direction.  
  
“Who?”  
  
“Vuvalini. We got them from the Vuvalini.”  
  
A mutter went around the room. _Vuvalini?_ Heads shook.  
  
“Where?” Joe demanded.  
  
“In the East. Past the mountains. They grow things.”  
  
The toothed mask came close. “What things?”  
  
The prisoner hesitated. Pa slapped his palm with the shears.  
  
“Plants! Crops!” Blood sprayed and Joe recoiled violently. The girls jumped. Pa turned towards the cupboard, his face a blaze of violence. Cal and Maus fossilized.  
  
Joe palmed gore from his mask, flicking it away with a practiced snap of his wrist. “These men. These _Vuvalini–”_  
  
A gurgle came from the chair.  
  
Joe pulled a rag from his trouser pocket and threw it at Pa. “Clean his mouth out, Kalashnikov. I can’t understand what this wreckage is saying.”  
  
Wiped and rinsed, the prisoner whispered, “Not men. Women.”  
  
The world stopped. The stillness was so instant Cal felt like she was falling. She grabbed at her sister. Maus’ slender fingers clung hard to her own.  
  
Cal watched as her uncle placed a hand in the prisoner’s wild hair, winding it up in his meaty fist. _“_ Women? Young? Old?”  
  
“Some of each. Strong, all. They trade fair. Please, Immortan, mercy! I’ve told you all I know!”  
  
“You're sure no men.” Joe cocked his head, hoses jiggling.  
  
The prisoner nodded frantically.  
  
Pa set the shears on the table and folded his arms across his narrow chest. “I witness the truth,” he intoned. “Will the Immortan grant mercy?”  
  
Joe made an agreeable sound and waved his hand. The prisoner was released. He slobbered blood on the floor then launched for the exit. Cal and Maus got their fingers into their ears just before Joe pulled out his revolver and blew the prisoner’s brains all over the doorframe.  
  
War Boys knelt to attend to the mess. Pa clapped Joe on the shoulder. “Strong women, eh?”  
  
“We’ll see about that.” Uncle Joe stood tall and cracked his knuckles, chuckling. Cal wasn’t sure what to make of him. That skull mask made everything he said sound dark and cruel.  
  
  
  
_______________________________  
  
  
  
There was a bullet on the doorstep.  
  
Trap and her Prime Imperator drew up short behind Cal. They were sour, preoccupied by news of another riot at the Citadel. This time it was about defense from Buzzards circling the Citadel perimeter. Furiosa had come down but the rumors were already flying: Up Top was too many wordburgers and not enough war.  
  
It was only a matter of time before Scrotus embargoed both towns. Cal knew it in her aching bones. He would run them dry of guzz and flame them in the name of his father until they broke and yielded.  
  
Then it would start all over again.  
  
She had to stop it. She was _going_ to stop it. But that bullet...That bullet on the step was in the way.  
  
Trap, frustrated as usual, rushed past her. “For V8 and the Immortan, it’s just brass, Cal. It’s everywhere, if you hadn’t noticed.”  
  
She let him pick it up. A slender roll of paper fell out into Trap’s permanently grease-stained palm, as she knew it would. He stared at it, confused. “What is this?”  
  
“Give it here.”  
  
Both men stood puzzled while Cal unrolled the note and held it at arm’s length to read. Not for the first time did she wish she’d thought to grab Joe’s old spectacles before his quarters had been gutted and his possessions destroyed. The writing was tiny. Not as tiny as Miss Giddy’s, but very much that of a faithful protégé. Maus had always tried so hard to win the Vault writing contests, each girl seeking to match the minuscule script covering the History Woman’s wrinkled skin. She’d never succeeded – the Wives’ fear of Joe’s wrath inspired them to near-microscopic efforts – but the practice served her well regardless.  
  
Cal read the little words and their enormous horror. She sat down on the step, dizzy.

Trap's dark brows drew together. “What’s the matter? Who puts notes in bullets?”  
  
“My sister.”  
  
“That nomad trash?”  
  
Cal could feel her pulse heavy in her abdomen, red and hot and much too fast. “Don’t call her that.”  
  
He ignored her. “What does it say?”  
  
It would have been easier to just hand him the note, but Polecats didn’t need to know how to read in order to swing and murder.  “She’s gone to get the ordinance. For the Abrams. The one-twenties.”  
  
“But you yourself said the price those scags were asking was too high.”  
  
Cal looked at the strip of paper again. The writing on it flowed with steady confidence. Cal knew better. Plans written out always seemed so simple, but life had a way of twisting everything. “She talked them down. She’s trading.”  
  
“Trading what?”  
  
Cal crumpled up the note. She threw the casing across the yard. “Herself, Trap. _She’s trading herself.”_  
   
  
  
__________________________________  
  
  
  
Maus liked to yell that Cal only cared about whomever could get her to the next level in life. The next Powder Boy, the next Forgemaster, the next Imperator. But when she found out about Joe, she whispered.  
  
“Are you kamikrazee?” She grabbed Cal by the hands and pulled her away from the vegetables she was chopping. Her words were little more than a hiss. “No, no, no! Please tell me you're not serious.”  
  
“I am. It’s fine.” Cal tried to go back to her work. “Pa’s going to be hungry and cross after the People Eater leaves. You know how much he hates the monthly count. I don’t want a beating because his dinner wasn’t ready.”  
  
“Cal, Pa’s dinner is going to be the least of your worries if keep doing what you’re doing.”  
  
“I’ll be careful.”  
  
“Careful won’t do. Joe’s a warlord.”  
  
“So is Pa.”  
  
“Not in the same way!”  
  
“Yes, you’re right. Pa’s lesser. He prefers this pit, making bullets and meting out justice and getting the Citadel’s dregs once a fortnight. I want more than that.”  
  
“To wear tissues and live locked up in a cage?”  
  
“I didn’t say I wanted to be a Wife.” Cal made an exasperated sound. “Honestly, I’m surprised, Maus. You’re the one who’s been running away since you turned twelve. I thought you'd understand.”  
  
Her sister stepped back, frowning. “Cal, I do. I hate it here, too. But there’s more to the Wasteland than these three towns. People are trying in other places.”  
  
“Places with water and shelter?”  
  
“Some, but–“  
  
“I’m not interested in suffering.”  
  
Maus stared at her in disbelief. _“‘Not interested in suffering’?_ What do you think is going to happen if you–” her sister broke off for a moment, searching for a word, “keep consorting with a man who thinks he’s a god?”  
  
Cal shook her head. She wasn’t getting through. “Maus,” she said, putting down the chopper. “Listen–“  
  
“To your crazy talk? You sound like one of Joe's softhead War Boys.”  
  
“Joe is no god, Maus. He’s a man, like any other. But he’s got the long look. If you sat on Council, you’d understand. He has such ideas on how to make the world better, to bring it back to how it was Before–”  
  
“By enslaving the poor fools who cross his path and scrapping any who resist.”  
  
“If Joe scrapped as many people as the Wasteland says he does, the world would be empty.”  
  
“Keep telling yourself lies, Cal. ”  
  
“Keep acting like you know everything, Maus.”  
  
Her sister snatched the chopper away and set to finishing the meal with grim determination. When the dented pot was simmering, she slapped the hubcap lid over it and wiped her hands with finality. “I’m going.”  
  
“Will you be back for dinner?”  
  
“In a few days, yes.”  
  
Cal sighed. “Where this time?”  
  
“Dunno. I’ll just ride till I forget.” An accusatory glare. “There’s plenty to forget about as of late.”  
  
“Maus, don’t be that way. Every time you go, it guts Pa.”  
  
“Feh.”  
  
Cal grabbed her sister by the upper arms. “It does. You’re just never around to see it. He tears his hair out with worry when you’re gone. He drives round and round in the Peacemaker looking for you and then drinks himself into a stupor when he can't find you. You’re breaking his heart.”  
  
“Cal,” Maus said with great weight, “If anybody’s going to break Pa’s heart, it’ll be you.”  
  
  
  
  
____________________

 

The silence after she finished reading aloud stretched on and on and on until the air in the Vault was ready to snap.

Joe's expression was flat and unreadable.

Miss Giddy, in the periphery, was wringing anxious knots in her apron. It was just the three of them: her, Cal and Joe. The other girls were off with the Organic for their monthly tune-ups. Cal found this unusual. Everyone usually reviewed their lessons as a group with Joe. He would come to the Vault and sit by the windows while they recited or wrote.

Cal scrunched her eyes shut and tried not to tremble. She'd done a stumbling job reading the script, at best. He was going to beat her. Or maybe even kill her. That's why he'd sent the others away.

Joe got up and stalked to the edge of the impluvium. He stood looking down at his reflection in the water for some time while sweat ran in cold rivers down Cal's temples and sides. Finally, he lifted his head. "Miss Giddy." 

The History Woman bolted up. "Yes, Immortan."

"Go see to the girls. Make sure the Organic is being thorough."

The clang of the Vault door behind Giddy's slippers was the worst sound ever.

"Caliber, come over here."

Standing up was hard. Walking to him was harder. Looking him in the face was impossible. Cal hid under her braids and waited for the first blow.

It didn't come. She heard him digging about in his pockets, then felt his hands at her vest, pinning something that tinkled.

"Open your eyes, Caliber."

There was a medal dangling from her lapel. She gaped at it. The silver disc featured a worn-off number and what looked like two creatures holding a shield. The tightly woven ribbon was slick and cool.  
  
Joe lifted up her chin with two fingers. His eyes were shining with a pride that turned Cal's legs to water. The chilly appraisal of earlier was gone; in its place was something much warmer. He reached up and unlatched his mask. It hissed for a second at his shoulder and then was quiet. "You read well. And I've a new war machine thanks to you. It more than makes up for the rock rider's debt. I'm pleased."  
  
Her head spun. “You are?”  
  
“Why, yes, of course.” He smoothed the medal flat on her breast then left his hand there, expectant.  
  
She hesitated. Her lessons at the Citadel had taught her more than just how to read script. She learned that when Joe entered the Vault and wandered about, especially over to the books or impluvium, he could be approached safely. If went straight to his chair, everyone needed to be quiet and perfect. Today, he had  been glowering in the chair when she entered. With him inches from her, she was paralyzed between wanting to trust and wanting to run.  
  
Joe's thumb brushed over her nipple with slow deliberation. “Why are you so unsure? Where’s my bold girl who spoke up in Council?”  
  
“But I didn't read perfectly," she stammered. "I made mistakes."  
  
"Who said you had to be perfect?"  
  
"No one, but–"  
  
He squeezed her breast gently, tilting his head down as he did so. "Everyone makes mistakes, Callie. I forgive you."

 

_________________________________

  
His absolution was absolute. He sealed it by pressing his lips over hers.  Cal tasted the metal of the mask and thrust her tongue into his mouth to show she accepted his pardon.

Joe grunted and responded in kind.

They ended up in the favorite's room. He stripped her of her clothes then did the same for himself. His brawny frame made the small room cramped. Cal guessed Joe was in his fifties now. No one really knew how old he was. She remembered how his hair had been mostly brown the day she and Rictus had played under the plane wing. Now it was shot through with silver, especially at the peak of his forehead where it had gone completely white.

He lay down alongside her, blue eyes roaming, and slid a hand between her legs. When his fingers parted her and pushed in, she gasped.

"Easy now," he chided. "Don't be greedy."

The pressure of his palm against her tender parts salved what lingered of his previous cruelty. His coldness over the course of her lessons was forgotten. His forgiveness meant everything. Her debts were paid. He'd said so. Cal worked to still her quaking, afraid it would disturb the good will he had for her.

Joe bent to her breasts, attending to the nipples, tongue circling while his fingers warmed and stretched her. The sensations made Cal’s legs shake and a frantic little sound squeaked from her throat. She pressed her mouth against the top of his head. “Oh–“  
  
“What is it, girl?”  
  
Cal gripped his wrist, grinding herself against the heel of his hand.  
  
“You want something?”  
  
All she could do was pant and nod.  
  
He pulled his hand away, fingers gleaming. Cal watched as he rubbed her wetness along his shaft, closing his eyes in pleasure as he did so, working himself even though he was already as hard as a man could be.  
  
“Please,” she whined. Now that her fear of him was gone, a terrible emptiness twisted just under her breastbone. It was a thing bred from years of isolation and loneliness. Starving, it longed to be fed.  
  
Joe noted her suffering. “What do you want, Cal?”  
  
She reached for him, spreading her legs on instinct. He rolled on top of her. His smile mocked her desperation as strafed her with himself, teasing.

Cal begged. “No, no. Come on, Joe, please.”  
  
“You have to try harder than that.”  
  
Cal pressed her breasts against his chest and kissed the stubble stippling his throat. She clamped a hand on the back of his neck with enough force to make his eyes widen. With her other hand, she found his cock and gripped it. Unlike the first time on the Council table, she was more than ready. "Stop torturing me."

A brief, mean thing glittered to life in his expression. Rough, he batted away her stroking hand. Cal felt a flash of her earlier fear. He didn't give her time to contemplate it. He thrust in, sinking all the way to the hilt in one smooth movement.

The emptiness inside her vanished. “Oh, god,” she cried.  
  
Joe gazed down, face full of triumph. “That I am.”


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a challenging chapter that didn't want to happen... but finally, I got the tow-winch and dragged it out of my brain.
> 
> Thanks for waiting everybody.

Joe’s favorite Imperator and her second came striding through the sunset. They rolled shoulder to shoulder, welded at the joint. Cal lowered her gun. She was on the wreck-littered Range behind the War Tower, teaching a group of War Pups to load and target. This latest batch was weak and lumpen. They struggled to pull back their bolts and squeeze the triggers. Cal did not try to stop them when they threw their scrap guns down into the dirt to clamor at Furiosa’s elderly War Boy’s bulging pockets.  
  
Furiosa watched as her second handed out treats and trinkets. For a moment, something benign tugged at her slash of a mouth, then lost the battle to her typical grimness. She flicked her eyes at Cal. “You’re needed in the Vault.”  
  
“Whatever for?”  
  
“Just come.”  
  
Interest piqued, Cal cleared her chamber and left the Range.  
  
Furiosa stayed close. The clacking tips of her mechanical fingers prodded Cal in through the emergency exit at the rear of the War Tower. The steep, winding corridor was dusty with disuse. As children, both Cal and Rictus had taken strappings from their respective fathers for playing in it. Cal’s interest deepened. Something secret, this. Otherwise, why not go through the front?  
  
She and Furiosa did not speak. They rarely did. They did not see eye to eye on many things.  
  
The anteroom of the Vault was unattended. Furiosa spun the great wheel and left quickly. Cal peered in, spotted Miss Giddy, and pulled the door shut behind her.  
  
The old woman was tending to a Wife. The Wife was crumpled into herself by the piano bench, drenched with sweat and moaning. Cal drew close. No blood on her linens. Belly flat. No bruises. Not even a bite mark.  
  
“What’s the matter with her?”  
  
Miss Giddy looked up. “Sick.”  
  
“From what?”  
  
“Bad food.”  
  
“So?”  
  
“So we call caught some. But she’s the newest, and still has the stomach of a Wretch. She’s wrecked.”  
  
Shadows slipped among the books, scissored behind curtains. Cal laid her hand on her gun and the shadows jerked to a halt. She spoke with dangerous authority. “Why is that my problem?”  
  
“He’s coming for her tonight.”  
  
“Just her?”  
  
Giddy’s gnarled fingers wrung at her apron. Her eyes darted to where each shadow, three in total, paused. Rusty light pouring in through the Dome burned across her knobby, scrawled-upon knees. “Yes. She’s not on cycle with the others yet.”  
  
“Others?” Cal did her best to hide her surprise. “Last time I was here, there was only one.”  
  
“There’s four of us now.” Toast came out from behind a pyramid of books. Two strangers slipped from behind the curtains: a ghost and a flame. The ghost was gnawing a knuckle and the flame was paradoxically dispassionate.  
  
Cal’s nostrils flared. “He’s been busy,” she said.  
  
Miss Giddy clutched at her gauntlet. “Caliber–“  
  
“Giddy, I have Pups to train and arsenal repairs to oversee. Why did you call me here?”  
  
“Because we want you to help.” Toast pointed at the sick Wife. “Help her. Help us. For once.”  
  
“Why would I do that?”  
  
“Because.” Toast turned away briefly. “You know… how he can be.”  
  
Cal knew. After the incident with the Mackinaw, she knew more than ever. She closed her eyes against the memory, but her long fingers betrayed her. They strayed to the crooked, aching knot on the bridge of her nose. She’d had it coming, couldn’t really blame him given her transgression, but still. The nose hadn’t even been the worst of it.  
  
There was a tug at her arm. Giddy peered up. Desperation was written everywhere on her. “Distract him. Just for a night or two, dear. Then she’ll be past her window, and he won’t bother with her for at least a month.”  
  
Toast made an effort to sound conciliatory. “Please.”  
  
Cal looked over at the woman she had helped enslave. She looked at the two strangers and the dread pooling in their already-haunted faces. She looked at Miss Giddy, full of the timeline of Cal’s life. Lastly, she looked at the newest Wife and imagined herself too sick to move, and how little that would mean to him, especially now.  
  
“You’ll owe me,” she told them. “I will come calling to settle it some day. When that time comes, I’ll accept no excuses.”  
  
A weak voice said, “We accept.”  
  
Giddy shushed the sick girl. “Angharad, be quiet.”  
  
Cal met new girl’s blue eyes. There was strength in them, and gratitude.  
  
They sealed the bargain with a nod.  
  
  
  
  
_______________________  
  
  
It took years, but eventually the Wasteland figured out the southeastern border of the Citadel was inadequately defended. Patrols became a quick and sure way to travel to Valhalla. Many engines also made their way to V8, only to return, reincarnated as weapons against their former god-king. The defense of Jesbit’s rocky territory became known as the War of Devil’s Spine.  
  
Pa was standing with Joe on an overlook with good shelter and visibility. They were watching a thin ribbon of raider camps strung across the horizon. Campfires winked in the deepening dark. Many.  
  
“I’ve heard Jesbit is still out there.” Cal could tell her father was testing the waters. In a fit of pique, Joe had dragged them all out on an observation run, furious and bent on proving to his allies that the problem was not as great as the losses implied.  
  
But the numbers didn’t lie. The People Eater, seated nearby, was using the last of the light to fill his ledger pages with further evidence. The Bullet Farm and Gas Town rarely saw eye to eye, but in this, the Citadel’s sister towns were unified: Devil’s Spine was an unmitigated waste.  
  
The Immortan was silent. He hefted his war club and shifted into an even more truculent stance. Cal wasn’t surprised. He’d been miserable and difficult for weeks. She was in no hurry to attempt to draw him out about options, either. Instead, she petted her Barrett on its tripod and squinted at a tall Gas Town Polecat.  
  
The Polecat offered a shaky smile.  
  
“You can buy her back,” Pa continued, low and even. “You know she’s got to be suffering since you finally cut her off. Fit her up with a few vehicles and we’ll throw in the guzz and the ammunition. We’ll deal with her direct. No need for you to be involved. Then we can stop this miserable business of pissing away our strength maintaining this border.”  
  
“It sounds like you’ve been having discussions I’m not aware of.”  
  
Pa hooked a foot in the Peacemaker’s chassis. “You can’t control everything, Colonel.”  
  
Joe seemed to consider it, then shook his head. “No. She’ll want a seat on Council again.”  
  
Cal snorted. The Polecat’s smile became a more confident grin.  
  
Pa hopped up on the Peacemaker. The hollow clink of his brass slapping against itself belied his frustration. “So what? We can manage her. Let Jesbit have her seat. We’ll outvote her every time.”  
  
“I said no.”  
  
“With all due respect,” Pa lowered his voice, “Even the People Eater agrees this is an unacceptable expenditure–“  
  
With a roar, Joe rounded on Pa. The troops, lounging on the cooling sand, did lizard scrambles for cover. “I will determine what is acceptable and what is not! Do you forget, Major, who you are talking to? I can handle this raider trash better than that old rust heap ever could. Now, gather your Bullet Boys and get ready to engage.”  
  
“I thought we were just observing–“  
  
“Change of plans!” Joe swung his club in a heavy arc. “I want every one of those fires dark before the stars come out! Thunder up, my War Boys! We’ll blood circle every last one of them if that’s what it takes!”  
  
The camp erupted into a frenzy. Cal sighed and adjusted the Barrett.  
  
The Polecat came gliding over when the warlords were gone. He had a mild voice. “You riding out, too?”  
  
She uncapped her scope and peered into it. “I’ll snipe from here. Light’s awful but I’ll get a few. You?"  
  
“Nothing to board. We’ll stay back.” He indicated her face, that shaky smile back on his full lips. “I like your tattoos.”  
  
“Thanks.”  
  
“You're Caliber, yeah?”  
  
A cool thrill corkscrewed down Cal’s spine. This Polecat was long and lean, with thick, dark hair. His grease-polished skin was tattooed but not flame-ruined. Her eyes lingered along the curves of his well-formed muscles. “You got good eyes? Want to watch for friendlies crossing my line of fire?”  
  
“Sure.”  
  
He indicated her face, that shaky smile back on his full lips. “I like your tattoos.”  
  
“Thanks.” Cal was suddenly very shy. Her face burned, and not from the fresh sixth tattoo.  
  
The Polecat leaned close. His shoulder brushed hers. “My name's Trap.”  
  
  
  
  
_________________________  
  
  
Furiosa’s strident voice could be heard in all reaches of the Garage. She stood with her feet apart and her chin thrust forward in defiance. Arguing. With the Immortan. In public. Of all the Imperators, she was the only one who ever dared openly refuse him anything. She was an enigma, beloved by the War Boys and worshipped by the Wretched.  
  
“Go yourself, if you want another patrol that badly.” She spat the words at Joe’s quivering mask. “That border is nothing but death.”  
  
Joe exhaled thin patience into his hoses. “You try me, Furiosa.”  
  
The tall Imperator crossed her arms to confirm her refusal. Cal stepped back to where Rictus giggled, shaking his head.  
  
“She’s stomping Dad’s brakes hard today.”  
  
Cal crossed her arms, unconsciously mimicking Furiosa's stance. “I don’t understand why she’s still alive. She should have been shredded ten times over.”  
  
“She’s nice to look at.”  
  
“I suppose, if you like one-armed War Boys. I’d be crow-bait bolted to the front of the Mack if I behaved the way she does.”  
  
The giant picked at the new baby head stretched across the front of his belt. He’d been awkward as of late, alternately shy or overly enthusiastic. Today he was shy. “Why do you care, Cal?”  
  
“Your father deserves more respect than that. Especially after all he’s done for her.”  
  
Rictus shrugged. “He’s done a lot for you, too, and you talk back to him all the time.”  
  
“That’s different.”  
  
“How?”  
  
“It just is.”  
  
The argument ended abruptly. Furiosa whirled on her heel, her aged War Boy striding behind. Joe went the other direction, attendant War Boys crowding close to provide support. It looked familial and tender but Cal knew it was anything but. Walking corpses, the whole retinue. The private War Boys of the Immortan never lasted. He picked the sickest, the ones who would ride eternal soonest, and who's gladness over being selected for this special role would ensure their dry little lips stayed shut about the truth of things Up Top.  
  
Cal, with years of watching Joe under her belt, knew better. She saw Joe's broad shoulders slump just a fraction under his armor. Tired. Tired of fighting and struggling, especially with Furiosa.  
  
All the better she had good news. She fiddled with her clothing. The waistband of her pants was growing tight. As she sought to adjust it, she was unaware of the little, secret smile that crept across her lips.  
  
Rictus, watching her closely, saw it. She heard him take a breath, felt him brighten. Years of attending his father had taught him about this particular subject well.  
  
He leaned close to whisper. “Are you?”  
  
Cal nodded. “Maybe. I think so.”  
  
“Does Dad know?”  
  
His happiness warmed her. She felt the discomfort between them melt. “Not yet.”  
  
“Come on, then! He can’t be far!”  
  
She laid a hand on his arm. “Wait, Rictus. Now’s not the time. Let him settle. We can tell him tonight.”  
  
  
  
____________________  
  
  
It was late when Cal made it up to the top level of the Citadel. The corridors were unusually quiet.  
  
Something’s wrong, she thought, and hurried.  
  
In front of the tall, iron door emblazoned with the Immortan’s sigil, Joe’s new Organic Mechanic knelt. The successor to the long time healer, recently swallowed up by the Devil’s Spine. Not an improvement, in Cal’s opinion, and her opinion of the other one hadn’t been terribly high. This man was disheveled and sweating, tool apron askew, air tubing in sloppy coils about his rag-bound feet. Streaks of white clay striped his bare arms, the marks of clawing, frantic hands. If Cal hadn’t known better, she would have thought he’d been in a fight with a War Boy.  
  
There was no War Boy in the Citadel who merited the use of the precious double-bottled air rig, though. Cal’s tongue turned dry as a rev-head’s rag. She swallowed hard. “Move.”  
  
The Organic had a fine lacing of sprayed blood decorating his greasy forehead. Not his.  
  
“Move,” she said, with greater urgency.  
  
He carelessly stepped on his tubing as he moved to block the door. “Go home.”  
  
“Just a few minutes, I’ll make it quick.”  
  
“You’re never quick and he doesn’t have the energy for you right now. It’s rotten on him tonight. Leave.”  
  
Frantic anger flared hard in Cal. “Where are his attendants? His Imperators?”  
  
“Down Below. They were in the way.”  
  
“Like you’re in my way.”  
  
The Organic had a cruel twist to his mouth. “The way I see it,” he said, “You should be glad I’m here, scrubber. He’ll live to fuck you another day, thanks to me.”  
  
Cal bristled. Revolted, insulted, she spluttered until she found a few short phrases her furious brain could process. “I have news. For him. Important. Let me pass.”  
  
“Tell me what it is; I’ll pass it on. No need to rile him up.”  
  
“It’s…” She hesitated. “It’s secret.”  
  
There was a bright flash of silver and suddenly, a scalpel pressed its hungry edge against her throat. “Don’t you think you’ve done enough damage with your secrets, Farmer bitch?”  
  
Cal recoiled from him, confusion overtaking any anger or even fear she might have felt. “What are you talking about?”  
  
The Organic spat fetid words at her. “You stupid slag, Joe’s two steps from the junkyard because you helped him keep his goddamned rusting pride intact, instead of coming to tell us what was wrong.” The scalpel was replaced by a blunt, jabbing finger. “I keep his secrets now. Not you. Not anymore. Get out.”  
  
  
  
___________________  
  
  
  
The tattoo gun’s buzz was loud, but not loud enough to cover up the sounds of panic out in the corridor. Cal jumped up, shoving the Slinger away, heedless of the blood beading on her face. The fifth bullet, now with a thin tail, due to her movement.  
  
“I ain’t been paid!”  
  
She dug in her pockets, threw a handful of live rounds at the Slinger, and ran.  
  
Pups and War Boys went scrambling past, black-ringed eyes wide with panic. They were all running away from Up Top. Odd. Clamor of any type should have drawn the Immortan’s private attendants to him.  
  
She ran faster.  
  
She found Rictus cowering by the entrance to his father’s private quarters. Corpus, parked nearby, squirmed in alarm. Joe’s Prime Imperator knelt on the floor, a rag against his bleeding head. Screams pealed behind the iron door.  
  
“Don’t even think about going in there,” the Imperator told her. “He’s out of his mind.”  
  
Something smashed inside. Cal jumped. “What is it? Dead babe? Suicided Wife?”  
  
The Imperator shuddered. “No idea. But whatever it is, it’s bad.”  
  
It had been a long time since Cal had seen Joe fly into an uncontrolled rage. Years and years. Gods rarely lost control of themselves. Except for when they were in their rooms, apparently breaking everything they owned.  
  
Cal turned to Rictus. “You go in.”  
  
Rictus shook his head.  
  
“Rictus, he can’t – and won’t – hurt you.”  
  
The giant’s eyes were round pebbles of shining terror.  
  
Cal choked back the urge to scream at him. Seething, she flung her attention on Corpus, who shied away from her gritted teeth. “How long has this been going on?”  
  
“An hour, perhaps. Started shortly after he woke.”  
  
The door barely muffled the anguished howl exploding from inside the room.  
  
“Is he armed?”  
  
“No, ma'am.” The Imperator pointed to a narrow table set against the wall. Joe’s wide belt lay on it. Both holsters were full of shining gunmetal. “Grabbed it before he brained me with the spanner he keeps under his bed.”  
  
Another scream, another crash. Someone had to do something. She approached the door. “Move aside, Rictus.”  
  
Rictus looked to his brother for reassurance. Corpus flicked a twisted hand. “Let her go, brother. The worst he can do is kill her.”  
  
Cal curled her lip at them all, put her hands flat on the door and pushed.  
  
Joe’s quarters were a shambles. Books and mechanical drawings were scattered on the floor, pages ruffling in the breeze of the circulators. Pottery and tins had been swept from their niches and shelves to vomit their contents in dark fans. The walls were pocked with pale dents roughly the shape of his war club. Even the bed had been mangled, bedclothes shredded. Only the great driveshafts which made up the bedposts stood undamaged.  
  
The Immortan stood shirtless in the center of the room. His bare chest heaved under the effort to draw air without his mask. From under the disheveled wreck of his hair, one unseeing eye stared. Crimson blood wound a lazy trail down one pale flank. Cal regarded the massive spanner dangling from his right hand with care.  
  
“Don’t you dare hit me with that,” she warned.  
  
He didn’t move. Cal wasn’t even sure he knew she was there. As she neared, she saw the stillness was but an illusion: a frenzy of tiny tremors shook his body. Tears streamed from the wild, staring eye. She took the spanner away from him and replaced it with her hand. Slowly, slowly. His fingers were slack at first, then they curled with desperate force. He came back to life with a great, gasping breath. His expression was agony.  
  
“Cal,” he rasped. “Look.”  
  
He turned.  
  
The tumor on his back was the kind that came up fast, sometimes overnight. A split in the skin over his right shoulder blade gaped open a good inch, oozing blood and fluid. Cal could see several more growths preparing to follow the first, lumpen threats emerging to distort the muscles along either side of his spine.  
  
Buzzard Rot. No mistaking it.  
  
“Oh, Joe,” she said. “Oh, no.”  
  
  
  
  
 _______________________________  
  
  
Joe’s tears were always for himself, but Cal could not blame him this time. The Organics of the Triumvirate were always jawboning about Buzzard Rot; its causes, its treatments, to cure or not. All Cal knew was it meant a marathon of torment. The Buzzards knew nothing else. Born with it, they grew up, raided and tunneled and ambushed and then finally died with it. They embraced their horror; their crusted bandages were the foundation of their foul culture. But for the civilized folk of the Citadel, the Rot meant a quick trip to the Gardens where a bullet and a composter waited.  
  
Cal spread careful hands on the as-of-yet-unblemished skin of Joe’s chest. He covered her hands with his own and squeezed his eyes shut. “You mustn’t tell anyone.”  
  
“Your Organic–“  
  
“I’ll speak to him in due time.” His fingers moved restlessly. “Would you help me, Cal? Patch it up, as chrome as you can?”  
  
Grave, she sat him on his wrecked bed and tended the ugly wound. Her hands shook. Joe hissed in pain and cursed. She froze, a strip of bandage stretched out like a flag of truce. Seeing her fear, he gentled and allowed her to finish the crude dressing. When she was done, Joe drew her close and kissed her with sad hunger. She could taste the salt of his tears on his lips.  
  
“I need you,” he whispered against the corner of her mouth. “My lovely, full life Cal, how I need you right now.”  
  
She began to hike up her skirt. He stopped her. “Not like that.”  
  
Cal glanced uneasily toward the door: closed but unlocked.  
  
Joe read her expression. He walked naked to the door and shot the heavy bolt.  
  
“If someone comes–“  
  
“Hush.” Returning, he stepping carelessly through the wreckage of his possessions. “Take off your clothes for me, Callie.”  
  
He took her up in his burly embrace, pushing her tunic down off her shoulders to ravish the skin there. Still strong and virile and proud. She leaned into his kisses, her heart pierced by the knowledge of what the disease would do. It would reduce him, deconstruct, destroy… but not just yet. Not for a long while. For now, he was still the Immortan, the Redeemer. And hers, much of the time.  
  
“Take it off," he husked. The despair in his voice broke her heart. "Take it all off.”  
  
She didn’t need him to ask again.  
  
  
  
________________________________  
  
   
When he wasn’t rough, Cal didn’t know what to do.  
  
She expected him to expend the rest of his rage and fear on her. Instead, he kissed her with tender pressure, tongue caressing, lips sensual on her jaw and throat. He did not bite. He did not grab or pinch. His broad hands stayed easy, and for a second, Cal wondered if, at some point in his long life, there had been a woman who had never known his capacity for brutality.  
  
She brought herself back to the moment. It was unlikely he would ever be this considerate with her again. He could only come down with Buzzard Rot once.  
  
The ripped blankets received them as they slid together with a mutual sigh. Joe sobbed a little and buried his face in her hair. It made Cal's own quiet tears spill. They held each other's faces, wasting water together.  
  
Towards the end, Joe’s earlier anguish rekindled. He fell into his usual rough pace, pushing her knees up and back while he bucked and plunged. Cal watched his inner pain grow more and more intense, until the blue eyes turned empty and terrible. The mangled headboard received his howled orgasm with wooden disinterest.  
  
She was left raw and finally satisfied. Curled in the mangled sheets, she waited patiently for him to calm, for his breathing to settle, and for the sick light to dim in his gaze.  
  
He did calm, covering her with languid kisses as he spooned against her.  
  
His breathing did slow, and soon, all was still, except for his hand, stroking her hair.  
  
But the sick light in his eyes.  
  
That.  
  
That never left.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poetry credit, Rudyard Kipling "The Sea and the Hills," 1902.

Pa was fretting. Cal could hear him pacing in his room.

She crossed to her window: moonset, pitch black, no stars. A strange, dark night. Earlier, Maus had tasted the wind and announced cryptically, “Breath of life, I smell it,” before admonishing Cal to exercise her stiff right hand.

Cal tried to make a fist. The mostly-healed fractures howled cold protests. She managed a claw, her index finger fighting more than the others. When the Farm Organic had seen the mess, he'd gone quiet, regarding the crooked finger. He'd asked her, “You want to ever pull a trigger again?” and then rebroken it before she could pull away.

That chill of memory clattered up Cal’s spine. She pursed her lips against the discomfort and went to check on her father.

His door was ajar. She could see him through the gap; graying, slumped under his fatigues. He started and spun when she tapped on the doorframe. Forty years of gunfire and blown V8s had finally dulled his hearing. “Caliber, what are you doing up?”

“Couldn’t sleep. Heard you pacing. What’s the matter, Pa?”

His lean shoulders bunched. As she sat down on the end of his bed, he turned away, putting a hand on the gun rack dominating the far wall.

“New batch of Citadel War Pups ready for Range training,” he said.

“I’ll get them on your Rangemaster’s schedule.”

“They get littler and littler every year.”

“I’ll dig out the scrap .22s. Little ones can handle those fine.”

“Some of them can barely lift their pants, let alone a rifle.”

Cal flexed her hand where it rested in her lap. He was upset about something and she didn’t want to know. Her current life was blissfully dull: Farm rounds, tinkering with the Abrams, and Trap, here and there. No Council, no patrols, no navigating the minefield of Joe’s inconstant moods. The very thought of starting all that again made her stomach clench.

Pa lifted one of his rifles. It was an ancient, time-chewed thing. “The world is changing, Cal. Can’t you feel it?”

Cal made a noncommittal sound. He wasn’t wrong. No one could quite put a finger on what was different, but it was there. Present in the air. Present in the way the tides of Wretched broke against the fences. Present in the way the ever-mightier winds uncovered new relics of Before, piling sand against the ankles of the nearby foothills.

“All the more reason to make sure those Pups are trained. If something’s going to happen, we need to be ready.”

Pa set the gun back in its place. He sat down next to her with a tired sigh. “Then I need you to train them.”

Silent, Cal toyed with her braids.

“You're a soft touch, Cal. The scrappers always do well with you.”

“No, Pa. I’ve a list of things to do ten klicks long.” She counted off on curled, swollen fingers. “The Mill roof needs patching, the primary piss-tank is leaking, I need to scavenge for scrap to repair the Abrams before that right track comes off for good. I’m full up and flat out like a liz– ”

Her father grasped her shoulder gently. “Range training will be good for you.”

Cal looked at the dusty trails of her father’s anxiety hatching the floor. She understood his pacing now.

“You need to get back into it, child.”

“I’m thirty, Pa. I’m no child.”

“That you are not.” In his weary face, she saw he knew more of the truth than she could have ever imagined. “You’re a fine woman, strong and bold. So get back out in it. Six months is enough. Let whatever happened– “ his eyes darted as he searched for words, “be buried under the sand. Go to the Range, train the Pups. Help with the armory. You needn’t ever set foot in the Immortan’s Tower.”

Cal covered her mouth with her good hand so he would not see her lower lip tremble. She swallowed hard. “The Abrams–”

“Will be fine. I’ll have my master blackthumb look after it.”

He was right. Six months in the Wasteland was thirty feet of sand, enough to bury any wreck, any mistake, even one as big as the Mack. Six months was one hundred eighty nights to cool the searing fury which had passed between her and Joe. She closed her eyes. An ache deeper than the one pulsing in her bones unraveled, carrying with it the watery shudder of her breath. Her good hand dropped away from her mouth. Her lower lip was still. “All right, Pa.”

A smile rumpled her father’s wrinkled face. He patted her cheek. She didn’t flinch. “Good, good. It’s nice to know there’s at least one thing in the world I can count on. I’m proud of you, Caliber.”

 

 

_________________

 

Rumbling woke Cal up.

Faint at first, it grew into a regular pulse. The sound of power and confidence. Cutting through the stifling confines of her shelter, the vibration grew louder and louder until it rattled the tent poles in their anchors. Her ears, micro-tuned thanks to pain, heard one, two, three bikes blow by, riders shouting, then the rumble was everywhere: in her teeth, her bones, her heart.

A tell tale shriek of air brakes. The rumble coughed and stopped.

War Rig.

She used a stick to push open the flap. Nothing but blazing bright.

Somewhere up beyond the rocks, she heard the bikes cut their engines. They did not rejoin their master vehicle. For that she was glad. How long had she been here? She couldn’t quite remember. Was this a search party, sent to find her, or a cleanup crew, sent to finish the job? Her heart lugged in her chest. It made her face throb. Everything throbbed, and not in a good way.

Cal rolled onto her back. Even that was an effort. Her pistol, loosely clutched in her left hand, weighed as much as her Barrett. She brought the barrel up until it made rough figure eights in the blazing brightness. The shot would be wild, but would have to be enough.

Footsteps now. Matrix crunching under treads. The step was confident, short and light.

Furiosa pulled back the tent flap and stared down the barrel of Cal’s gun, unimpressed. “I thought so,” she said.

Cal let the barrel drop.

The Imperator pushed into the shelter. Her nose wrinkled at the sour stench of Cal’s pain and suffering. The mechanical hand came down on the groundsheet, splaying near Cal’s crushed right hand. A canteen was unsnapped, uncapped. Wetness touched Cal’s lips and she found it in herself to sit up and drink.

“So, this is where you ended up.” Furiosa took a swig from the canteen after Cal finished. “How long have you been out here?”

“A week, maybe?” Cal rasped.

“Alone?”

“Aside from you barging in, yes.”

“You’re tougher than you look.”

Cal laid back down. Blood banged in the bruises ringing her eyes. “Thanks.”

“Your father knows where you are?”

“He thinks he does.”

“I see. Who’s covering for you?”

“My Prime.”

Furiosa grunted and sat down cross-legged. Her attention scrounged around the flimsy shelter. “You can’t hide forever. Especially not in this.”

“Not forever. Just… a few more days.”

Outside, the engines of the War Rig pinged in bright harmony to each other. A crow made gnarled sounds at some shadow. War Boy voices drifted in and out, clinging to the breeze.

Furiosa picked debris off the groundsheet. “Joe will forgive you, eventually.”

Cal spat. She was glad to see no blood in it. “I don’t want his forgiveness. I don’t want _anything_ from him. Ever again.”

Furiosa shrugged. She tossed down the canteen and got up. “Take this. I’ll leave a box of rations next to your truck. The netting’s blown off, by the way. That’s how I spotted you.”

“I don’t want anything from _you,_ either.”

The Imperator opened the flap. The hot truth of the noontime brightness barreled in, hammering into Cal’s wounds. Words came from the blank silhouette that was Furiosa. “I remember the day you shot my tires, you know. The day I tried to run. You could have easily taken me out, but you didn’t. You followed his orders. You’ve always followed his orders. Why did you decide to go out on your own now, after all this time?”

Cal swallowed hard. “I was trying to help.”

The silhouette was stern and still. “Then consider taking a page from your own book: When others offer you help, say yes. Praise V8 and be glad someone cares. Otherwise, you’ll wake up one day and there will be no one. Not your father, not your Imperators, not even that dusty feral you call a sister. You’ll be alone, and then what will you do?”

 

_________________

 

In the dream, he is sand and fire and she is pinned like a truck is on top of her.

There have been others. They are but tepid breezes to his storm.

She’s hurting and she has hurt for so long that when it's not there, she's empty. The hurt fills the holes. And when it is over, her head is stroked, and the pressure of his hand on her hair is cool water rushing over her body.

She knows she will never give him what he wants. A piston of guilt throbs. It spins her crankshaft, RPMs rising. She sucks air and wishes for nitrous. He pulls her head back using her braids and steers her where he wants her to go.

When he redlines, his uncaring hand rips out casings, along with ragged ends of braids. Unraveling plaits fall over her bare shoulders, tickling sunburned skin. Dark hair mingles with white. She cannot move. He crushes her flat on the bed, panting into her neck, while she struggles to breathe beneath the unbearable weight of him.

He fills her with his seed but she remains forever empty. In the background, the Mack burns, and her last hope slides unseen, into the sand.

Pain explodes.

The void swallows her, curling round her mouth like a smothering palm.

 

 

_____________________

 

Trap’s hand against her lips tasted of oil. His voice hissed harsh in her ear. “Cal! Stop screaming!”

Cal’s cry died away. The nightmare shredded. She became aware of the hard slats in the bed of her truck flattening her ribs. Camped. Out on the plain, to the north of the Citadel.

Spying.

“Get off me.”

Trap rolled away with a huff. Freezing night air invaded the folds of her clothes, its icy reality making her shiver. Cal hunkered back down under the blankets, crossed her arms over her belly, ignoring the ghosts of loss tickling under her skin.

At least her screams had not raised alarm. Back when Joe was alive, the plains around the Citadel crawled with sentries. Not so much, now.

She’d found the spot where the Farm would position its forces. Far enough from the rock towers to not garner attention, but within easy range of the Abrams. There would be no problem planting a one-twenty right where it would cause the most chaos and do the least damage: the Dome. Then they would move, her Imperators and her Bullet Boys. It would be quick. It would be unexpected. It would be merciless and methodical and it was absolutely necessary.

Gas Town would never attack two towns under one unified control.

Cal should have felt accomplished, but instead she was simply miserable. She curled around her pain and wept quietly.

“You know,” Trap growled, “I’m getting tired of asking what’s wrong with you.”

In her mind’s eye, Furiosa glared an order. “I had a bad dream,” she said, with difficulty. “Would you hold me?”

He did. Once her agitation passed, he helped her to not be empty, as well.

 

 

__________________________

 

The troops were singing. The song made no sense. Words about girls and cars and something called a highway star. The Immortan strode through the shouting throng, avoiding the clutching hands of the over-excited with practiced twists. For those who kept their wits and offered polite salutes, or better yet, abased themselves in the dirt, a hand on a bowed and trembling skull was the reward.

Cal, uncomfortable with the evening joviality, wandered up a spine of rock and sat down to watch from a distance.

They were far out. Farther than Cal had ever been – at the end of the world, maybe. The Farm was several days ride behind; ahead was nothing. Literally, nothing: a featureless pan of pale blending into a horizon both impossibly far and impossibly close at the same time. The only blemish on this perfectly scoured vista was the black blot of the night crew, shoveling a year’s worth of salt into barrels.

Cal had begged, and begged, and begged some more until Pa, worn down like the rock upon which she sat, had agreed to let her join the Citadel's annual salt recon.

It had been fun, at first. Racing the War Boys to the next hill or jagged range of mountains. Watching the evening sun ignite the fleet’s chrome with orange fire. Creeping through the cold stillness of the night to slip into into the Mack and the warm tumult of Joe’s bed.

But this was too much. This vast space. It tugged at her with invisible fingers. Looking upon it, Cal finally understood the sheer size of the world.

She was anxious for home.

Below, the War Boys quieted, voices dying with the flames of their fires. The silence made that terrible space seem even bigger.

She was relieved when Joe came crunching up the rock. He wore an armored jacket in defense against the chill, one epaulette clinging by a thread. Frayed elbows and a mangled hem rippled in the breeze. His silvering hair was pulled back in a low ponytail and a quiet scrubber stood in for his usual heavy mask. Cal eyed the scrubber with resentment. The salt-sting in the air ensured it would not come off. No kissing, then. She breathed disappointment into her cupped hands, and stood.

“Quite the view, isn’t it?” he said.

“What used to be there, Joe? Miss Giddy said it was water.”

“It was.”

“The sea?”

“Yes.”

“It would have been so big.”

“As big the sky, Cal.”

She hugged herself. “That’s hard to believe.”

He was silent. She could see he was thinking deeply. When the timing seemed right, she asked, “Are they all gone, the seas?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

Cal tried to imagine where that much water might still be. Somewhere far away. At the end of this Salt, past even more land and then there would be a real sea. Stretching, lapping, never ending. Deep. Giddy said miles. _All that water._

She drew close to Joe. His bulk was an anchor against the pull of the gray abyss before them. “Did you ever see it?”

He nodded, breathing slowly.

“What was it like?”

His fingers found hers, twined. In a voice soft and somber, he intoned:

 _"Who hath desired the Sea? – the sight of salt water unbounded –_  
_The heave and the halt and the hurl and the crash of the comber wind-hounded?_  
_The sleek-barrelled swell before storm, grey, foamless, enormous, and growing –_  
_Stark calm on the lap of the Line or the crazy-eyed hurricane blowing.”_

“That sounds terrifying,” Cal whispered.

The curve of the scrubber grazed her forehead. “Quite the contrary, my dear. It was beautiful.”

 

 

__________________________

 

The Bullet Farmer and his daughter were sitting in companionable silence at the dinner table. Pa was cleaning guns while Cal was loading magazines.

The Farm hummed around them, busy in the cool evening hours.

At the gate, a supply trunk honked a goodbye, off to visit a satellite tribe to ensure loyalty through ammunition and good will.

The larder was stocked with plenty of fresh food. There were no dry mouths or hungry bellies. Outside the window, the high voices of children – Reload Rats and unassigned boys – teased the sunset with their bright laughter. Cal, hair unbraided and coiling about her shoulders, put her drum down, dreamy.

“You look happy,” Pa commented.

“Things are good,” she answered.

Her father grunted, but it was a pleased sound. He went back to his work.

Cal rested her chin on her hand. She gazed at her reflection in the speckled mirror welded to the sideboard. Wild and dark. No casings in her hair. She had new ones now, hidden under her bed. “For you, my brass Medusa,” Joe had said earlier. They’d been in the cab of the Mack, under pretenses of fitting the dash with new weapons clips. He’d reached under the seat, his knees touching hers lightly, and pulled out a box. Black cloth covered the contents. Joe’s white hand stood out stark against the cloth as he pulled it back, almost shy. Inside, the gold gleam of polished brass, mirror-fine from the efforts of the Pup who had polished them. Marvelous and beautiful.

Then he’d kissed her, and the casings were forgotten for quite some time.

She smiled, still dewy from the Immortan’s blessings.

“Who is it?” Pa asked, casual.

Cal shook herself and went back to loading. “What do you mean?”

“I know the look of a girl who is in love.”

She jammed rounds into the drum as fast as she could. “That's not what it is!"

“What is it, then?”

Cal's face was hotter than the Foundry furnace. “It’s nothing, Pa.”

Pa laughed. “Definitely a boy.”

 

 

____________________________

 

It was early morning. The sun crept stealthy over the rumpled bedclothes, casting the Immortan’s private quarters into a clatter of brightness and shadow. Joe’s snores were labored. His face was welded to the pillowcase by a night’s worth of oozing. The long scars on his cheeks, the ones imitated by Imperators and Way Boys as a means of becoming closer to their god, had gone raw from days of unrelenting mask wear.

Cal looked over at the Immortan and despaired.

Deep in the rock, the pumps kicked on. Mechanical life, ever on schedule. Organic life, not so much. Joe sucked air and gurgled. Cal waited for his red-rimmed eyes to open. They did not. 

She drew her knees up to her chest, wincing.

The dust storm. It had boiled in last night, just as the border patrol crested the ridge to the Citadel plain. Pa in the Peacemaker, to the right of the Mackinaw, Cal in her battle truck to the left. They barely had enough time to throw the nitrous before pelting debris began punching fist-sized holes in their vehicles. The fleet Peacemaker peeled off to the Farm, but Cal, in her slower truck, was forced to shelter in the lee of the wallowing Mack. Engines and winds howled at each other as they raced the leading edge of the dust cloud. By the time the patrol roared into the Citadel, half the paint was scrubbed off the Mack, Cal’s right leg was bristling with pieces of shattered windshield and every last one of them – Cal, Imperators, War Boys, even Joe, despite his mask –  were coughing up lungfuls of grit.

All this to maintain that bloody southeastern border.

She slid out of bed and limped to the window. Her curving shadow followed. He had not yet noticed the slight swell of her belly and she had not yet told him. She’d missed her first opportunity, thanks to the new Organic. Now, with the increasing concerns of war, sharing news about her condition seemed less important.

Plus, she didn’t want to be forbidden from the patrols. Not just yet.

Across the room, Joe coughed and stirred.

He would wake soon. It would be bad. It was so hard now, watching him suffer, banned to the corner while he hacked up the night’s settled fluid. Spitting and wheezing and straining until the skin on his back split from effort. Refusing help. Refusing to admit how bad it was now.

All this was going to kill him.

Cal pressed her forehead against the warm glass. Down Below, Wretched were unearthing unlucky vehicles buried by the storm. Bent roll bars and shreds of smashed armor told them where to dig. She saw two Bullet Farm cars on their sides and a Gas Town hauler nose-first in a ditch.

The War needed to end.

Joe coughed again. She jerked up straight, not in a startle but from a realization.

There was a prisoner. A man they’d scooped up this run. The one who tried to hide his welded collar when Trap yanked him off his bike at speed, who tried to suicide but failed, thanks to the Polecat’s strong arms. All dogs wear collars, Cal thought and smiled. Especially those of the Irondog clan.

She knew what to do now.

By the time Joe wheezed himself to consciousness, she was dressed. He reached for her, clutching desperately at her bandoliers as he struggled to kick start his lungs. She did what she could for him, but in the end, she called for the Organic, who immediately banished her from the room.

Cal did not linger outside the great iron door. She left quickly, wrenching her accouterments back into place.

The prisoner would give up his secrets. Today.

Then she and Jesbit would have a talk.

Warrior to warrior. Woman to woman.

She held her belly as she walked. Her news would have to wait, just a little longer.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deals, some costlier than others.

Cal was a daughter of the Bullet Farm, and Bullet Farmers hated being upside-down on a deal. Never over, never under, never late and never early. _And never, ever, upside-down._  
  
“So, what did you want to talk about?” Maus asked.  
  
They were sitting in the upraised bucket of a retired excavator, under pretenses of monitoring the yard. Cal was heavy with dread. Maus, lighter of spirit, kicked her feet in playful arcs. A motley collection of rags chased her toes: forward and back in streams of brown and blue and yellow. Cal’s own armored boots hung serious and still.  
  
“Maus, you’ve spent time with the Buzzards, yes?”  
  
Her sister’s feet slowed to a more thoughtful pace. “Of course.”  
  
“How are your terms with them?”  
  
A snort. “Better than yours. Why?”  
  
“Because I need some of that salve they use on their skin.”  
  
Maus’ thin eyebrows arched. “For the Rot?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
Her sister turned to face her. The bucket squeaked and they both grabbed the edges for security as the machine rocked on its treads. Pa, across the yard overseeing the installation of a window to brighten the narrow kitchen, turned in alarm. Maus offered a stiff smile and a reassuring wave. She whispered through her teeth, “Are you sick?”  
  
“No, no.” Cal pressed her hands between her knees. The urge to tug at her braids was strong. She did her best to be casual. “It’s for someone else.”  
  
“Who?”  
  
“A friend.”  
  
“What kind of friend?”  
  
“None of your business.”  
  
Maus clunked her heels against the underside of the bucket. “It’s an Organic, isn't it? Trying something new, now, are you?”  
  
“No!” Cal made a disgusted noise. “Fuk-ushima, Maus, that’s low!”  
  
Maus sat back. She pulled her legs up. Strange painted symbols flaked along the sides of her trousers: moons, suns, squiggly lines with dots on the end. Gears of appraisal ticked through possibilities behind her sun-bleached eyes. Maus didn’t know. She _couldn’t_ know. Still, guilt crawled on scorpion feet up the back of Cal’s neck. One hand freed itself from the vise of her knees and found a braid, wound.  
  
With a cheek against one knee, Maus sighed. “Must be some friend, then. All right. Will take some doing, though. We’re not favorites of the Buzzards, thanks to you.”  
  
“I’ll compensate.”  
  
“I don’t want compensation. I want freedom.” Pale eyes locked onto Cal’s fist. Thought gears went _tick-tick-tick._ “I want you to keep Pa off my back about the Powder Mill.”  
  
“But I already run the Forge–“  
  
“And if you want that salve you’ll figure out how to run both, and well.”  
  
“I can’t.” Cal clenched her hair. This was too expensive. “I’ll get you parts for your bike, tins for medicines, maps or books–“  
  
The smile Maus offered was not sweet. “Medicine for Mill. Simple. Or your _friend_ can rot.”  
  
Despair came roaring into Cal. Joe and Pa made wheeling and dealing look so easy in Council, yet here she was, a Bullet Farmer upside down in a deal with _her own sister_. Pa would shit brass. Cal searched for a counter, and finding no leverage, settled for ire. “If you fail to bring me what I require–“  
  
Maus scoffed. “Stop with your imperious ‘if you fail’ wreckage, Cal. This isn’t Citadel Council and I’m not some cowering Wretch. You don’t scare me. Tap your brakes. You'll figure it out.”  
  
“Easy for you to say.”  
  
With a flick of rags, her sister hopped down to land lightly in the dust. Her bearing was loose; already free. “My Mill schedule is nailed to the Grinder’s board. Watch stone nine; I think its wearing out. We need a dozen more Wretched impressed by tomorrow to keep the run rate. Rest of it's written out. Don’t junk it up.”  
  
“Maus, isn’t there something else we could agree on–?”  
  
“No.” Maus was already dipping into her pockets. “Now, how much do you need? Use palms. How many to cover the wounds?”  
  
Cal envisioned Joe’s broad back, then regarded her own relatively large hands. “Two.”  
  
Maus flipped a small tin up to her. “Deal, then,” she said.  
  
_Upside down._  
  
  
_____________________________  
  
  
  
  
  
“Bad idea.”  
  
“We shouldn’t stop.”  
  
“The Farmer will kill us.”  
  
“No, he won’t.” Cal slapped the stick into neutral. The vehicle chugged to a stop. Up ahead, a collection of boards desperately tried to remember a former life as an old petrol station. “Plus, I saw something move over there. We should check it out.”  
  
They were out on their own, a regular run, dropping guzz and bullets at outposts along the perimeter of the Triumvirate’s territory. Their hauler was sloppy with supplies. In the cab was her standard crew: Imperator, gunner and blackthumb. An hour from their first drop, asses already numb from the rocky driving, brains bored flat by landscapes seen thirty times before. Nothing exciting, nothing unusual.  
  
Except for a flutter of fabric, snagged on a spear of rebar.  
  
Cal got out. The crew would stay put, that she knew. They might grouse and whine, but they trusted her almost as much as they trusted her father.  
  
The little scrap wiggled in the remnants of the morning breeze. Cal stood still in the nippy air, one hand on the door handle, listening. Aside from the wind whistling over the nose of the hauler, all was still.  
  
“Miss Cal, don’t go over there,” the gunner said softly. “I got a bad feeling.”  
  
“I got a feeling you’ll die soft,” Cal retorted. “Cover me if it makes you feel better.”  
  
The scrap, when she got close, wasn’t what she thought. Maus favored densely woven fabric; this was something crude, almost a burlap, probably scrounged up by a duster and impaled at random on the twisted steel. Still, it hadn’t been there the last time they’d passed the station, so she stretched to snatch it away, lest the next supply run see it and delay out of the same curiosity.  
  
And then, the ground gave way under her feet.  
  
The fall knocked her air out and turned her ankle. Rocks and boards rained down across her chest. Pit trap! By the V8, how stupid could she be? Heart in her mouth, Cal quickly checked for other injuries, found none save the ankle, then proceeded to sweep debris away in frantic bursts. Up above, a few shots zinged off metal. The pit was slightly wider at the bottom than at the top. There was no way to climb out. Cal flattened herself in the shadow, pistols at the ready. She was dead if someone came with a machine gun, but with anything less, she might have a chance.  
  
The scattered shooting stopped. Someone hooted. It sounded… gleeful?  
  
She heard the dirty hinges of the hauler screech open, then slam shut. Bootsteps, running. Not towards the pit.  
  
Cal hunkered, confused. Crumbs of dirt were drifting down of their own accord. Any scrabbling at the edges could collapse the shallow overhang right on her head.  
  
There were more voices now, definitely glad. Her men... but also others. What in the name of V8 was going on up there?  
  
“Hey!” Cal bellowed. “Crew! Get me out!”  
  
Footsteps came strolling. Cal expected to see her Imperator's bald head or the blackthumb's ragged mohawk. Instead, a gnarly, stooped figure wearing a cuirass covered in washers appeared over the lip of the pit.  
  
Jesbit snorted in amusement. “Hello, Caliber,” she chuckled.  
  
  
__________________________

 

  
  
They made camp with the Irondogs by the petrol station. Cal’s Imperator was brother to Jesbit’s lieutenant, and their respective gunners were milk cousins of some sort. Each had thought their relative long since traveled to the glory of Valhalla. The reunions were joyous.   
  
The men huddled around their own fire. They were half way through a bottle of something brown and eye-watering. Cal and Jesbit shared a smaller fire, a dozen yards away. It hadn’t been Cal’s idea.  
  
Jesbit rolled sketchy bushmeat onto car-antenna skewers. “The tattoos are a nice touch,” she said, tapping each wrinkled cheek twice. Her voice was a bouquet of metal burrs dragged down the ragged fabric of Cal’s nerves. “At least now you're proper.”  
  
“I’m still not quite clear what it is we’re doing here.” Cal’s ankle throbbed and her pride was raw. She sat very still. “You trap me in a pit, shoot up my hauler, and now you’re offering me compliments?”  
  
“Two bullet holes in the windscreen doesn’t count as shot up.” Jesbit sat back on her thick haunches, flames nearly licking her armored shins. “And yes, I’m offering you a good word. I never thought I’d lay eyes on you again, let alone out by yourself, heading up a crew. You seem to have done well, despite your somewhat– “ she paused to scratch her rump– “ _questionable_ beginnings.”  
  
“How long has it been, anyways?”  
  
“Don’t know.” The meat sizzled; Jesbit turned the spits with leathery fingers. “Five, six years, maybe.”  
  
“Long time.”  
  
“Yeah, long, long. Many dry days, many cold nights. Thirsty times, as of late. The Immortan's deliveries don't come as often now. Do you still have your seat on Council?”  
  
Cal gave a curt nod.  
  
“Heh. I hope it’s… comfortable.”  
  
Cal ignored the jibe. “It suits me fine, Jesbit.”  
  
The meat cooked. Cal laced her fingers together and ran her thumb in endless circles around her palm. The men laughed and drank. More bottles were drained. Jesbit ironed her lips flat against each other, gazing into the flames as she fiddled with the signature welded collar sported by all her tribe. Finally, she took a breath and raised her attention to Cal, her aspect measured. “He’s made you hard.”  
  
“I’ve made myself hard.”  
  
“So you think.”  
  
“What’s that supposed to mean?”  
  
“Nothing, nothing.” Jesbit pulled a spit from the fire and held it out to Cal. “Here. Take it." When Cal wouldn't, she offered what appeared to be a genuine smile. "From one hard woman to another. Please.”  
  
Cal reached. The spit was searing hot. She hissed and dropped it into the dirt. Jesbit's laughter spilled forth, full of satisfied gusto. Before Cal could shake off the pain, the older woman reclaimed the meat, dragging the spit between her teeth. She chewed and swallowed, eyes half-moon slits above the curve of her toothy grin. “But not hard enough yet, I reckon.”  
  
  
__________________

 

 

Purple dawn completed the long night. Cal limped over to the hauler just as it coughed to life. Her Imperator rested his elbows on the wheel, head trapped between his hands to keep it from falling off his neck.  
  
“Serves you right, Zastav,” she told him. She looked at the gunner and blackthumb. They were in similar states, slumped in the front seat. “Serves you all right. You should’ve known better than to drink that Irondog piss.”  
  
“And you should’ve known better than to walk right into a pit trap.” Jesbit clapped her hand on Cal’s shoulder. “Go easy on your men. We all make mistakes."

Two barrels of guzz and a wooden crate sat nearby casting a long morning shadow across the road. Cal pointed at them. “Will this settle it?”  
  
“It'll cover not blowing your heads off, yeah.”  
  
Cal lowered her voice, keeping this next detail between her and the head Irondog. “There’s mortars in that crate. A good dozen. You’ll find none better.”  
  
The old woman’s eyebrows went up, then settled, agreeable.  
  
Cal turned, arms crossed firmly over her chest, anxious to go.  
  
“Caliber.”  
  
She looked back over her shoulder. Jesbit had an elbow on the top of a guzz barrel and a lit cigarette already glowing in the corner of her mouth. She patted the barrel, sucked the cigarette to a red glow, then blew twin streams of smoke out her nose. “I’ll remember this, this trade. It’s straight fair. If you be needing something in the future, maybe we can deal again. I got regard for a woman who’s made it in this world, even if I don’t agree how she got there. Well played and met, Miss Kalashnikov. See you on the road."

___________________________

 

 

  
They were peering through the Council chamber glass, watching Buzzards cut thin trails in the red lands to the East. It was unusual for Buzzards to be out during the day, even more unusual to see them accompanied by a lone biker. The rider was adept, weaving in and out of the spiky cars, standing up on the long bike’s footpegs, knees loose and easy. At one with the machine. Cal couldn’t tell what she was watching: pursuit or play.  
  
“You’re doing it again,” Rictus said quietly.  
  
“Sorry.” Cal let go of her longest braid. The bullet-end dropped to against her top-most vest buckle.  
  
Joe and Pa looked up from the People Eater’s ledger.  Both were annoyed.  It was a bad time; blistering hot, far beyond season. Crops were wilting. Waterlines striped the reservoirs with white crusts. The Wretched’s cannibal fires filled the Gardens with greasy, foul smoke. Society’s fabric, thin at the knees, was about to tear clean through.  
  
The Brothers-in-Arms were having a mighty difficult time patching things up.  
  
Rictus leaned close. He had drawn a smiley face on his forehead with engine grease. His expression under the drawing was grave. “Stop it. Dad already yelled at you once today, Cal. Corpus says he’s got _stress_.”  
  
Cal almost laughed. Stress, indeed. They were all stressed. Cal patted her head, scalp sore from earlier. She knew the braid-pulling was a bad habit – a tell, Joe called it – but the atmosphere in Council had been unbearably tense. No need for Joe to be such a bastard about it. He’d come barreling down the table, and with all his cruel strength wrenched her hand out of her hair. “Hands on the table and be still,” he’d snarled.  
  
Rictus pushed the long-looker away. “We should go to the Garden,” he said quietly. “I want to show you the veggies I planted. The Green Thumbs showed me how. They’re growing all sorts of chrome.”

"It stinks up there."  
  
Pa turned. “You two,” he said, full of warning. “Either be silent or get out.”  
  
Rictus whale-eyed the warlords. “Sorry, Uncle. Come on, Cal, let’s go.”  
  
Cal gave the view one last glance. The Buzzards and bike made few more enthusiastic circles, then sprayed sand and raced off West. The bike was a smooth, dark arc of speed. I wonder who that is, she mused. Her fingers found a brass-ended braid and tugged gently.  
  
The room became very still.  
  
Rictus’ hiss was too late. “Don’t–“  
   
Joe launched. His fingers clamped down on Cal's wrist. Once again, she found herself at the mercy of his forceful grip. Rictus backed away; Pa rose from his seat but stopped when the People Eater placed a fat hand on his shoulder. Joe began to shove her to the door, toes of his boots kicking her heels, his breath puffing hot against her cheek. “Every thought,” he snarled. “Every worry, every idea, every last _rock_ rattling in your skull is visible when you pull your hair. Let go of that braid now or I’ll cut it off.”  
  
“The braid or the hand?” Cal snapped. She was tired of the manhandling.  
  
Joe's eyes narrowed to slits. They gleamed in the flickering lamplight, and not in a way she liked. “Don’t press me, Caliber. I’m not a man who likes to choose.”  
  
  
  
___________________________  
  
  
  
A large tin lay heavy in her palm. Cal opened it. A pungent scent drawled upward.  
  
“Must you always use the kind that stinks of Buzzard?” Joe was shirtless, bleeding across the shoulders.  
  
“Better to smell like a Buzzard than look like one,” Cal growled back. “Now sit and be still.”  
  
He sat. His expression was sly. “Sometimes I can’t believe how I let you speak to me.”  
  
She smeared salve over his wounds with rough strokes. He flinched in pain. It pleased her. “All secrets cost, Joe. You know that.”  
  
  
_________________________  
  
  
The one-twenties, when dug from their hiding spot in the ground, were far more beautiful than any of them expected. Cool gray cases. Forever blue tips pointed as the tacks her father had coveted for his precious paper maps. They all stood staring at them: Cal, her Prime, and a very dirty Trap.  
  
Cal reached towards a shell but drew back before her fingers met the metal. These were holy relics. Her touch would foul them with human mortality.  
  
“Fuku-hell,” Zastav breathed. His eyes beamed with visions of glory. “V8 has blessed us.”  
  
Trap snorted dust into the palm of his hand with judgmental zeal.  
  
The Prime ignored him. “This will be historic. Your sister has redeemed herself.”  
  
Cal bent her head. Maus had come home briefly, just long enough to deliver a crude diagram detailing the hiding place of the munitions crate. Cal suspected her sister hadn’t wanted to be seen. She had been little more than a tattered shadow wavering at foot of Cal’s bed.  Cal remembered torn trousers, missing buttons, belts half-broken and mended with wire: the price of the bombs, worn like a badly-fitted coat.  
  
“Make it count,” Maus had whispered, then slipped away.  
  
Cal wondered if she would ever see her again. She doubted it.  
  
Trap threw down his shovel and put his back to them.  
  
Gusts of grief came buffeting. Into Cal’s heart they flowed, bunching up behind her tongue in a hard, icy ball. Loss, cold metal, full of bite. Fire would drive it away. The fire of decision, of action, of war. Her lips curled. She would fix what had been broken.  
  
When she stepped forward and laid her hand on the topmost shell, her Prime covered her hand with his. His palm was warm with his faith in her.  
  
She said: “We will all redeem ourselves with these.”  
  
  
  
_____________________

  
  
“I got your message.”  
  
The lithe figure came forward, a sigh between rocks. Nearby, a long, sinuous bike stretched in rest. Pa’s old shotgun was now a sawed-off, incomplete thought suspended from a thin clip under the lightly-webbed seat.  Well-preserved night vision goggles dangled from one handlebar. The rest of the bike was covered in colorful trappings made to catch the wind. Cal had seen one like it once before, from far away, through a powerful glass.  
  
Maus was feral, wearing a collar, and full of truths. “What do you need?”  
  
“I need more of the Buzzard salve.” Cal could not hide the anxiety in her voice.  
  
“How many palms this time?”  
  
Cal counted. Her long face stretched with dread. “Thirteen.”  
  
  
  
  
____________________  
  
  
Trap had his arm around her as they lay in bed, one hand making lazy runs up and down her body. He reached her belly and stopped. His palm rested for a moment on the now-obvious lump.  
  
Cal squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for it.  
  
“What in fuk–?” He leapt up, furious.  “That’s what Toast meant! That day on the platform! When you fainted! Whose is it? How long has it been there? Is it mine? Is it his?”  
  
Cal rolled over, towards the wall. She pulled her knees up. “It’s not anybody’s, Trap.”  
  
Trap grabbed her shoulder and tugged roughly. “Bollocks! Whose is it? It can’t be mine. You would have told me. Do you have one of that fat smeg’s last maggots in you, Cal? By god and gunpowder, answer me!”  
  
“No, Trap. It’s just… mine.”  
  
Three tiny words. They hung in the air, light as ashes from Gas Town’s burning garbage dumps.  
  
Trap was not satisfied. “That makes _no_ sense!”  
  
“Trap, listen to me. It’s not a baby.”  
  
She heard him open his mouth and shut it. His honest confusion was palpable in the low-ceilinged room. In that moment, he reminded her terribly of Rictus. Rictus who had understood just enough of the world to be hurt by everything around him. Rictus who had wanted nothing more than a little brother of whom his father could be proud. If she hadn’t been in so much pain, Cal would have sobbed.  
  
Trap’s fingers, still on her shoulder, tightened, but not in anger. “If it’s not a baby, what is it, then?”  
  
Cal covered her face with the blanket. “It’s the end.”


	17. Chapter 17

Trap on a pole was one of the shiniest things Cal had ever seen.  
  
The scags would never make it. Gas Town had drawn point that morning, which meant they were first off the mark when the wanderers broke cover.  
  
Cal risked a glance at the Immortan. He stood with her father in the high bed of the Mack. A map spread out in front of them on a water tank licked curling corners at the blue sky. Joe was in the middle of stabbing at a location, each strike of his finger ringing hollow: _bong, bong, bong._  
  
Last night’s impromptu attack at Devil’s Spine had done little to secure the border and nothing to sate the warlord's desire for savagery.  
  
She peeked at him again. He saw her head move and turned. Red, pent-up lust and violence boiled in equal measure under the shadow of his brow. It brought to mind the last time they’d been alone. Unable to perform, he’d flown into a bellowing rage. Gentling him had been impossible. The situation finished up with Cal, back against the wall, swallowing bitter pills of shame while Joe snarled inchoate accusations at her.  
  
Take it out on the scags, she thought. Get it out of your system, smeg.  
  
It could have been worse. She was in the doghouse, or so Pa called it, for her appalling shooting last night.  
  
Cal decided she didn’t care.  
  
Out in front, the scags did their best to make small targets of themselves. Their ragged buggies darted in all directions. Roaring Polecat trucks flanked. She spotted her new friend Trap shimmying up to his foot-ring, moving fast and sure and strong.  
  
She wondered if Joe had ever been able to move like that.  
  
One buggy broke away. Trap’s vehicle cut to acquire. Cal sucked in her breath as the pole swung wild. Trap rode with it. Momentum carried him up with flying feet back to the foot-ring, and as the pole arced back down towards the ground, he was standing, confirming his balance, now reaching forward. Effortlessly, he dragged a scag out of the buggy and deposited him into the Citadel man-hauler rolling parallel to his truck. Then, he was sailing back over and down, hands outstretched, ready to grab another.  
  
A wave of heat rippled through Cal. Those hands. She could still feel them on her. They’d been up under her vest, fingers brushing her nipples to hard points, making her heart smash so hard against her ribs she’d barely been able to aim.  
  
“What are you smiling about?” Joe glared down from his perch. Pa peered over his shoulder.  
  
She dipped her head towards the melee. “Quite something, those Polecats.”  
  
Joe’s eyes were dead sky, preceding storms.  
  
“Shall I make myself useful?” Cal asked. She did nothing to dull the needles in her words. “Get out the Barrett? Pick off stragglers?”  
  
Joe made a stiff gesture of denial. “Not after last night’s dismal performance.”  
  
She gave him her profile. “Whatever you wish.”  
  
Joe snorted an epithet into his respirator and moved heavily back to the map. It reminded her of something. Tortoise, she thought. Miss Giddy would be proud I remember. _He moves like a bloody tortoise. Slow and old._  
  
Trap was not a tortoise. Trap was young, all quivering muscle and slick, unbroken skin. Another ripple of hot rebellion settled between her legs. Cal shook herself and turned back to the action.  
  
Pa, still peering, raised his eyebrows but said nothing.

 

  
________________________  
  
 

  
Joe had her by the hair, her cheek jammed against the door panel of the Mackinaw. The taste of cold metal was bitter on her lips. A War Boy on night watch glanced towards them, then found reasons to bury his attention in his tool belt.  
  
Cal’s clothes tore with a machine gun rattle of popping threads. Seamstress will be so cross again, she thought as she struggled to maintain balance. It was becoming harder and harder to explain all the ruined necklines and shredded waistbands. Maus kept stuffing scraps of gauzy linen in Cal’s holsters as a reminder of how to solve the problem.

Joe's hand slid rough between her legs. She forgot her worries. Wetness rushed to meet his fingers.  
  
His words were a metallic rattle. “Would you be a warlord’s wife, instead of his trifle?”  
  
“Whatever you wish,” she whispered.  
  
He shoved himself into her. “I wish for this, then.”

 

________________________

  
  
The War Pup trailed behind her like a bumper half-off. Now, as Cal prepared to depart, he clambered in through the passenger-side window of her truck and battered her with questions.  
  
"How old are you?"  
  
She checked her position on the platform and gave the signal to the Winchman. "Nine thousand days."  
  
"That's old!"  
  
"No, it's not."  
  
The platform jerked. They began to descend. All around, the rock towers soared and for a moment, Cal was struck by the immensity of the Immortan’s endeavor. So much accomplished, and she was part of it. Her heart swelled with pride.  
  
"Where are you going?"  
  
"Back home. To the Bullet Farm."  
  
"What's at the Bullet Farm?"  
  
Cal peeled little white hands off the shifter. "Nothing interesting."  
  
"Is this your truck? It's shiny!"  
  
"Yes, it's mine."  
  
"Then why aren't you a boy?"  
  
This one made Cal pause. "Why would I be a boy?"  
  
"Because only War Boys get to drive."  
  
"Who says that?"  
  
"The Immortan."  
  
"Ah, I see." She leaned over, one eyebrow raised. “I guess I’ll need to give him my keys, then, next time I’m here.”  
  
The Pup stilled. His eyes grew wide. "You have seen him? Talked to him? Up close and chrome?"  
  
“That I have," Cal said.  
  
"What's he like?"  
  
Her smile was large. "He's very impressive."  
  
The Pup bounced on the seat. "The War Boys say he grabbed the sun."  
  
Cal nodded. "Yes, he did."  
  
"And came back from the dead."  
  
"That, too."  
  
They were descending past the Skullmouth now. It gaped, ominous and dry. The Pup regarded it for a moment. His voice was a bright pip. ”I’m going to come back from the dead. That's what we say: I live, I die, I live again."  
  
"That, or you ride."  
  
"Yes! We ride on the highways of Vallalla!"  
  
"It's Val- _halla_." Cal's correction was gentle. She remembered her father telling her of Valhalla once, and suddenly, a windstorm whirled in her, unexpected and searing.  
  
The platform thumped down. The Winchman blew his whistle, a shrill keen. Cal frowned. Sensing her change of mood, the Pup became all solemn eyes and tilted head. “Val- _halla_ is for War Boys." He pulled himself up to sit on the edge of the window. "So when you die, where will _you_ go?”  
  
The Winchman scooped up the Pup and slapped the side of the truck.  
  
Cal bumped off the platform. Wretched mobbed her, hailing and begging. In their dying faces she searched for an answer to the little boy's question.  
  
She found nothing.

  
________________________  
  
  
  
There was one time, one very rare time, when Cal encountered Miss Giddy out of the Vault.  
  
The day had started full of good feelings. Joe was vastly pleased about the pigs. Barter Town, far away and generally ignored, occasionally lost a few of their most precious resources to either thieves or the animals’ ability to root through mud-brick foundation footings. This time, three squealing hogs had barreled across the road just as Cal’s patrol was shifting up into high gear. Joe let Cal keep the meat of the one that totaled her elderly lead car and rewarded her with a new medal in exchange for the two that lived.  After expressing gratefulness to him on her knees in a variety of ways, he'd sweetened the reward with permission to select enough fresh fruit to fill a basket for home. Now she was making her way, two stairs at a time, up to the Gardens.  
  
The green of the Gardens shouldered the sky. Overwhelming. Not as bad as the idea of the sea, but close. Sometimes she would touch the plants, part their leaves, just to see the brown desert beyond. There was reassurance in being able to push aside all the verdant chaos to know the dead reliability of the Waste was still there.  
  
Green Thumbs stepped aside as she passed, saluting with moisture-shining hands.  
  
Not only was it green, it was humid. Watering cranes creaked and misted. Soon, Cal's hair was a sweat-sodden mess. Her brass rested clammy against her breast. Uncomfortable, she was grousing under her breath, snapping pears from branches when someone cleared their throat behind her.  
  
“Fuku-hell, Miss Giddy! What in the world are you doing out?”  
  
The History Woman pulled back the cloth covering the basket she carried. At the bottom lay a bundle of blooms, red and yellow as signal flares shot on a windless day. “The Immortan wanted flowers for the Vault.”  
  
“Who’s watching the girls?”  
  
Giddy replaced the cloth. “He is.”  
  
A stab of jealousy pricked under Cal’s tongue. It hadn’t even been an hour since she’d left him wrung-out and panting, head lolling against the back of his chair. Now he was in with _them?_   She spat. “It’s bloody hot up here.”  
  
Giddy slipped a slim canteen off her bony shoulder. “Drink.”  
  
Cal grimaced. “Ugh, warm.”  
  
The older woman snatched the canteen back. “It’s _pure_. No rads, no rust. The gall you have, you who gets to drive away free while the rest of us stay locked up, like animals in a zoo.”  
  
“Watch your mouth, History Woman. Remember who you’re talking to.”  
  
Giddy curled her lip. “Oh yes, a daughter of the blessed Bullet Farm. Where justice is dealt, as long as it aligns with the Immortan’s desires. Tell me, Caliber, how is your sister, the one who actually bothered to learn her maths?”  
  
“Maybe I’ve sand in my ears, but those sound like the words of a traitor.”  
  
“Not a traitor, girl. Just a realist.”  
  
In the shadows of the trees, the Green Thumbs stood still, clippers paused mid-cut. Their circumspect attention added more weight to the already impossible pressure of the green. Cal whirled on her heel, fruit flying from her basket, but before it even hit the ground, she was back in Miss Giddy’s face.  “What do you know of real, you who hasn’t felt the grit of a sandstorm in how long? Ten years? Twenty? Have you _ever?_ Do you know what it’s like, to wake up every morning, covered in sulphur dust, unable to get the stink out of your nose or the taste from your mouth? I’ll put you up at the Bullet Farm and we’ll see how you do. You’ll be begging to come back here before the week’s out, I promise.”  
  
“You’d be begging after a week in here.”  
  
“I don’t see why you can’t appreciate all he gives you.”  
  
Giddy’s eyes narrowed. Her voice dropped low. “When he beats you, you’ll understand.”  
  
Cal let out a snort. She knelt to pick up her fruit. “I’m not going to give him any reason to beat me.”  
  
The History Woman stepped back. Leaves, gleaming wet, closed in her wake. “You will, believe me. We all do, in the end.”

  
________________________  
  
  
  
Joe's newest Wife, Cal had to admit, possessed a quality which could only be described as rousing. Cal wondered if that was why he chose her.  
  
“Don’t you want something better?” Angharad was all shoulders as she leaned over the table.  “A life not lived in servitude?”  
  
“I'm not his slave,” Cal replied.  
  
“You are. We all are.”  
  
Cal tapped a finger against her breast. “I volunteered.”  
  
Angharad made a disgusted face. “None of us understand you.”  
  
“Not your job to understand.” Cal pointed to the girl's flat midsection. _“That's_ your job. Fill that up. Give him sons.”  
  
“Easier said than done and you should know better than–“  
  
“Girls, please.” Miss Giddy came soft into the room. In her hands were several small fruits. Humming a half-tune, she began stuffing them into Cal’s vest pouches with industrious energy. “Caliber, take some figs for your ride home. They’re good for your bones. Thank you for checking on us. As you see, Angharad is well recovered.” She began to push Cal towards the exit tunnel, age-papered palms careful not to press too hard on Cal’s formerly hurt places. “Go. Please.”  
  
At the mouth of the tunnel, the grease-streaked stone that was Furiosa dipped her chin just a fraction. The Imperator went to hammer on the door to get the exterior guard to open it.  
  
There was a righteous noise behind them. Angharad stood with a shaft of sunlight angling across her stately figure. The other three Wives clustered close. Definitely _splendid_ , but not quite chrome, more like...  
  
_Galvanized._  
  
Cal bent close to Miss Giddy. “He’s got his work cut out for him with this lot, doesn’t he?”  
  
Miss Giddy gave a slow, sympathetic nod. “They try his patience mightily.”  
  
“Good.” Cal patted the old woman’s hand. “He deserves it.”

  
________________________  
  
  
  
Her father and Joe were having it out in the Farm kitchen. Maus and Cal crouched outside under the window, eavesdropping like when they were little.  
  
“You could at least take her as your Wife!” Pa snarled.  
  
“I asked her a long time ago.”  
  
Pa snorted. “You _asked.”_  
  
“She never answered me.”  
  
Maus looked over at Cal and mouthed, _Did you?_  
  
Cal tried to remember. Her memory was hazy. Maybe that time out on the dune? He’d been a beast, slamming her up against the Mackinaw’s door panel again and again. _I guess,_ she mouthed back.  
  
Pa's words were coiled tight, ready to snap. “So what are you going to do, when she takes pregnant? If she gives you a son, will you make him your heir?”  
  
“I doubt that’s going to happen.”  
  
“Jesus Christ, man.”  
  
Joe’s laughter came wheezing. “Why call upon old, dead gods when you stand in front of a living one, Major?”  
  
Maus widened her eyes. _Does he really believe that?_  
  
Cal nodded. _Sometimes._  
  
Their father cried, “This is my daughter we’re talking about!”  
  
“The same daughter, who, every time my Mechanic examined her as a child, was covered with bruises from your belts?”  
  
“Don’t change the subject!”  
  
Joe’s response was smug. “Well, _I’ve_ never beaten her.”  
  
The victorious pause stretched from the Bullet Farm to the Plains of Silence.  
  
When the Immortan spoke again, his words rolled easy and cool, water from the clean pipe of reason. “Listen, my old friend. None of this was forced. Your daughter is a woman of her own mind. A warrior, and a fine one at that. She represents the Farm well. So what if she’s spirited? Nothing to be ashamed of. Not like your other liability.”  
  
Maus winced. Cal touched her hand. _I’m sorry._  
  
“I’ve done the best I can!” Pa hissed.  
  
“Have you now? Kalashnikov, need I remind you of the times you tried marrying Cal off? What kind of a life would she have led with any of the Wasteland garbage you picked? A willful thing like her? You know what would have happened. At least with me, you don’t have to worry about her ending up on the dinner table.”  
  
“No, just the Council table.”  
  
Joe barked a guffaw. Cal rolled her eyes. Maus covered her face.  
  
They heard the Immortan's heavy footsteps head towards the doorway. A quiet clink of cowed brass told them Pa was following. “Console yourself, Major,” Joe said, pleased he’d gotten the best of their father. “At least she’s fraternizing above her station.”

  
________________________  
  
  
  
Pa stood up from the dinner table. “Don’t you dare walk out that door, Caliber.”  
  
Driver and Imperator paused, unsure of which Bullet Farmer to obey.  
  
Cal flapped a hand at them. Wrench-bracelets clinked on her wrist, substituted for her typical gauntlet and glove.  “Go on, prepare my vehicle. I’ll be along shortly.” When she re-entered the room, her reflection slithered across the sideboard mirror. She grinned at it. _Medusa._  
  
“Sit down and take those ridiculous trappings off.”  
  
“I’ll do nothing of the sort.” She ignored the dismay scuffing the leather of her father’s face. “I’ve places to be, Pa. Wreck recon, then patrol along the mountain wall. All your orders.”  She held up the manifest which had been slipped under her door in the night. “Right here, signed by you.”  
  
“And no reason you need to be done up like you are.” Her father bared copper-jacketed teeth. “You’re going to stop at the Citadel, aren’t you?”  
  
“So?”  
  
“We have no business there today.”  
  
“It’s on the way. I’ll top off the water tanks.”  
  
“Consider this a change of orders, then. Mountain patrol only. Skip the wrecks. We’ll make due with what we have for now.”  
  
Cal resisted the urge to tear at her elaborately-plaited hair. She settled for crossing her arms tightly over her bosom. “You yourself said the last dust storm uncovered some alpha-prime vehicles. Or would you rather we wait, and keep our place as jackals of Gas Town's scraps? Come on, Pa, you know that doesn’t make sense.”  
  
A breath, then two passed. Her father clutched his head.  
  
“You will _NOT_ go to him!” he screamed.  
  
Cal tapped the order manifest against her tattooed cheek. “I suggest you make a choice, Pa. If you want your orders carried out, either promote Maus or stop screaming and let me do things my way.”

  
________________________  
  
  
  
The room started spinning slowly at first. The longer she tried to ignore it, the worse it became. A high whine keened in her ears and the floor seemed to vanish. There was a brief blank space; dark as a moonless desert night, empty as a spent casing. Then, hands frantic at her shoulders, grunts of effort in her ear.  
  
“Callie!”  Joe was a blurry gargoyle above her.  
  
“What–?”  
  
“You fainted.”  
  
“Fuck.” She seldom used that word, but in this case, it seemed appropriate.  
  
Joe’s eyes were wide under the curtain of his white hair. He was down on one knee, in a position that would send his back and bad leg into spasms of agony if he kept it up for long. She struggled to rise.  
  
He put a hand gently on her chest. “No, Callie. Stay down. For a little while. Breathe. Let the blood go back to your head.”  
  
“Why’d I faint?”  
  
“I don’t know.” Joe heaved himself into in a more comfortable position. He swept his hair out of his eyes then took one of her limp hands in his, squeezing. She squeezed back and felt him relax a fraction.  
  
Gas Town. They were at Gas Town. That’s why the window was aflame, the sky beyond it unnaturally black. Why the very air felt oily. Why everything in the lavish room was covered in a thin coating of soot. Joe liked to meet here, high up in the People Eater’s Tower. Cal would have much preferred to be out on a dune, in the cold, clean indigo night, but what Joe wanted, Joe got.  
  
She realized the warlord was staring at her like he’d seen one of his own sons run down on the road. His hovering concern was unbecoming. Her lips peeled back from her teeth. “Please don’t try to tell me you actually care.”  
  
He recoiled. His wide eyes shrank to wounded slits.  
  
She said quickly, “I’m sorry,” but the damage was done.  
  
“I’ll let you crack your head open on the flagstones next time,” he snapped.  
  
“I said I was _sorry.”_ Fainting had been bad enough, but now this? The God-King, pouting.  
  
With a huff of effort, Joe got to his feet. Both brows were drawn together, a deep line dividing them. The pink underside of his jaw bulged, the muscles there clenching. Cal watched his hands with wary attention. No fists. She’d never been on the wrong end of his dusty knuckles and did not intend to start. Rolling up on her knees, she assumed a supplicant’s posture, mostly because she was dizzy again. “Immortan, forgive me.”  
  
He stepped back from her. "Crawl if you're that sorry."  
  
Cal obeyed, the floor blackening her palms. “I take back what I said.”  
  
“I should kick your ungrateful ass down to the oil field.”  
  
She reached forward to touch his boot. He growled, but didn’t move. She scooted closer. Her lips brushed the grinder wheel on his shinguard. “Let me make it up to you.”  
  
A grunt, muffled by hoses and horses' teeth.  
  
Cal stayed low. Her dirty hands drifted upwards. They found his knees, then the thick flesh of his thighs. His belt buckle bumped the tips of her fingers. She didn’t need to look up to loosen it; she had done so enough times she could do it from beyond the dead. Once she laid the heavy leather and metal of his station aside with quiet care, she attended to the front of his trousers with delicate pressure. Only when the hard rod of his erection sprang back under her palm did she dare look up.  
  
Anger still festered in his wrinkled brow.  
  
“I really am sorry.” She meant it.  
  
His petulant expression faltered. She edged even closer, breasts brushing his legs.  
  
After a moment, he put his hand on her head, while she stroked his cock through his pants with increasing vigor. His sigh was both tired and dangerous. “Your mouth is going to get you in terrible trouble someday, Callie.”  
  
“I know.” She nuzzled his crotch, lips moving over the tented fabric.  
  
“I gather you’re feeling better?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
His fingers tightened in her hair. “Then make yourself useful and suck me off.”


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Long chapter, all about unpleasantness, across all fronts.
> 
> We're getting close to the end, kids. Thanks for riding with me on this!

There was no need for any pulling of fingernails nor shattering of teeth. All Cal had to do was smile and tap the open jaws of her vice grips on the prisoner’s crotch. Jesbit’s location spilled out of him like so much fearful piss. When his babble devolved into simple begging, she pistol whipped him into silence.  
  
Jailbird was in her chair outside the cell. She squeezed sideways to let Cal out.  
  
“You get what you needed?”  
  
“I found the truth, yes.”  
  
The heavy-set woman nodded, sage. Rumor had it she was a former Milker, a clever one. Cal couldn’t be sure. She’d only been to the Milkers’ room once, and had been furious for most of the visit. The faces behind the veils had been nothing but a blur.  
  
Jailbird hoisted herself out of her chewed-up chair to peer into the jail cell. “Quiet and neat, just like your pa.”  
  
“How do you know my Pa?”  
  
Jailbird huffed quietly. “Girlie, do you think you’re the first person to ever buy time with a prisoner?”  
  
Silence curled cool around the two women. The brig was deep in the third tower where few ever wandered and fewer returned. It was a honeycomb of small natural cells, seated below the craftsworks and the gambling dens and the Citadel's sprawling brothel. Prisoners languished behind steel grates, wordless in the face of their fate. A few might see the sun again if their blood was deemed fit for War Boy top-ups. The rest knew they were destined for the compost dump once their secrets were stripped away.  
  
“You’ll see he’s put in tonight’s pick up, yes?” Cal asked.  
  
“That’s gonna cost you extra.”  
  
Cal was glad she had thought to prepare for this. From her belt pouch, she produced a handful of chits, good for water or food at the Citadel’s commissary. She peeled off two, thought for a moment, then added a third.  
  
Jailbird snatched them from her hand and held up the scraps of printed fabric to read. “Glory be! A-one quality, these. Where did you get them?”  
  
“Not for you to know.”  
  
“Picking the Immortan’s pockets, are you now?”  
  
“He doesn’t keep them in his pockets.”  
  
A sly smile. “Then you looked in his desk.”  
  
They stared at each other for a beat. Cal’s mouth dropped open.  
  
The jailer stuffed the chits into her tunic. She sat back down, straightening her knuckle armor with efficient tugs. “I remember you,” she said. “From long ago. The Immortan brought you up to the Den one time, to show us to you. You were young, then. If I remember right, he tried to get you to sit in one of our chairs but you wouldn’t. That made him right cross.”  
  
Cal’s brow drew down, dark. “I remember. I told him he’d have to break both my legs to make me sit because I was an officer of the Bullet Farm, not some cow.”  
  
Jailbird snickered. “And Rictus, he was there. He tried to stick up for you, didn’t he? Told his father you looked nothing like a cow.”  
  
Bile rose in Cal’s throat, the hot edge of a dull knife. “Yes. And his father agreed with him. He said, ‘Yes Rictus, you’re right. Cows have tattoos on their _ears,_ not on their _faces.’”_  
  
  
  
  
  
_____________________________________  
  
  
  
Trap tried. He tried so hard. Harder than Cal ever thought he would. Harder than she wanted him to.  
  
He stayed close. He sat far away. He pried open the windows when she felt like she’d go crazy from staying in and covered them with burlap when she raged at the sun. He brought food, and when that didn’t work, he brought clear liquor that smelled of earth. When mixed with the painkillers, it filled Cal with a winter night’s numbness.  
  
It was in this numbness she now stretched, prostrate in bed, swimming in her clothes, thoughts sludge in the oil pan of her brain.  
  
“You need to eat.” Trap dug in his pack and came up with a tangle of jerky speckled with biscuit flakes. He broke the jerky into tiny pieces, cupping the little pile in one palm. Cal took the food in silence. She chewed with dull effort. When Trap wasn’t looking, she spat the mess into her hand.  
  
He wandered about the room, their room, rubbing the backs of his crossed arms. “Are you sure there’s nothing your Organic can do?”  
  
“I’m sure.”  
  
“He can’t cut it out?”  
  
Cal lolled her head to the side. “No.”  
  
“I’ll take you to the Citadel. All the equipment must still be there. They can do such things.”  
  
“Not anymore. Joe’s Organic went missing after the Chase. Now no one knows how to run the knock-out machine.”  
  
“We don’t need that. I’ll hold you down. We can get your Prime to help.”  
  
Cal tried to say no but the cough took the word away. That was the new thing: the dry cough. She wondered if this was how it had started for Joe, the tickle that never quite settled. She hoped it would not become the hideous, wet rattle of the end.  
  
Trap watched her for a moment, then resumed his restless pacing. “I’ll go West. I’ve heard there’s an outpost there with some Before Timers still alive. They’ll be old but it’s worth a shot. Or maybe we can send for your sister. She knows healing. That salve she would bring you always helped my burns. I’m sure she must know of something–”  
  
Cal had to throw an uneaten crumb of jerky at him to get his attention. “Stop. For the sake of god and gunpowder, just… stop.”  
  
The Polecat went silent.  
  
“This is how it is.” She heard herself speak in the thin voice of a stranger. “I’ve known for a long time. I’ll rest. I should be stronger tomorrow. Let it go.”  
  
“No.”  
  
“You can’t fix it.”  
  
“There must be someone who can help. I’ll go to the Salt if I have to–”  
  
“You’ll do nothing of the sort.” Cal dragged herself upright. She waited a moment for the world to cease spinning, then regarded her man with the even stare that had parted endless Wretched, made Imperators bow, and convinced a warlord go against his better judgement time and again. “You’ll stay here, and help us get ready. We have the plan to carry out. The Citadel can’t stay soft like it is, Trap. Scrotus is out there. I can feel him watching, waiting. He’s under my skin, like a bruise. He’s going to eat them all alive.” She paused, more to catch her breath, but it was effectively dramatic. “He told me so himself.”  
  
“Fuk-ushima, you just don’t know when to quit, do you?”  
  
“Bullet Farmers aren’t quitters.”  
  
“And that’s how your Pa got himself junked.”  
  
Numbness rose with her as she eased to her feet. Its froth collected along the inside of her skull, crusting, protecting her. She shrugged one shoulder at Trap, slow motion, then shuffled off to Pa’s office to re-read her plans. “His choice, just like this is mine.”  
  
Trap was limp with despair. “You’re impossible, Cal. Just impossible.”

 

  
________________________  
  
  
  
A road war was on.  
  
It was battle car against battle truck. The vehicles plowed between knees of rock, churning deep in the soft loam. The truck was faring better than the car, but the car’s passenger was pulling out a weapon and preparing to even the score.  
  
Cal would have recognized that gun from anywhere. It was the assault shotgun she’d left behind the night she’d run away from the Perentie.  
  
“Ram him!” she screamed.  
  
Her driver yanked the wheel hard left. The vehicles smashed into each other. The Perentie’s blast went high, shredding the tire rubber wrapped around the windshield pillar but otherwise doing no major damage.  
  
“You missed, smeg!” Cal bellowed triumphantly.  
  
Her former husband, seeking to reclaim what he had lost, howled in rage.  
  
Cal’s driver put rocks between them.  
  
The confrontation had been long coming. The Perentie had joined with the Carpetsnakes, a strong tribe who's territory lapped against the Citadel’s western flank. To demonstrate their displeasure over their new leader’s failed marriage, they liberally seeded the area’s vague roads with mines. At first, the Triumvirate ignored it. A few shredded tires, bent axles and legless War Boys could be tolerated. Then, one day a Gas Town FDK guarding a fully-laden Citadel wrecker on reclaim patrol caught a mine. The resulting explosion fried every car on the wrecker, nearly killed Pa and crisped the Immortan’s last tolerant nerve.  
  
The Bullet Farm was ordered to fix the problem. Cal jumped at the chance.  
  
The two vehicles now cleared the rock divider and came together again in the narrow arroyo. Cal saw the Perentie punch at his driver and knew he thought he had them.  
  
She had other plans. Plans that Joe had, after some cajoling, approved.  
  
“Fang it!” she shouted. “Get to the plain.”  
  
They raced. Tires bit deep and showered dirt. The battle car was a ghost in a cloud of steam, engine screaming at top limit. It began to fall behind.  
  
Cal tapped her driver. “Ease off. Let the scav think he has a chance.”  
  
When they bounced out of the arroyo and onto the plain, Cal gave the sign. A mirror flash acknowledged. The Perentie, driving blind in his steam-belching vehicle, hammered the accelerator and tried to close the distance as they cleared the rocks.  
  
The Mackinaw broadsided them.  
  
The sound of the impact was deafening. Body panels and tires pinwheeled through the air. The Perentie's car flipped and slid, coming to rest with one wheel rolling unevenly against the blank track of the sky.  
  
Now _that_ was satisfying.  
  
Her driver stopped a circumspect distance away. The Mack also swung round. It nosed up to her truck, monstrous, its prow arcing over her hood. The Immortan emerged.  
  
“Well done,” he told Cal.  
  
“Not quite.” Within the wreck’s flattened roll cage, Cal could see frantic movements. She drew one pistol and took a step forward. A firm hand on her shoulder stopped her.  
  
“Not for you to finish,” Joe growled.  
  
“What do you mean–“  
  
His fingers dug in. Greedy violence of his own gleamed under the shadow of his brow.  “Caliber, this is not your quarrel any longer.”  
  
Cal wrenched his hand away. “Yes, it is! This is _my_ revenge.”  
  
“Not if I say so. And furthermore, you forget yourself.”  
  
She did her best to collect herself but anger shook her words. “Immortan, I did the work. It’s only fitting.”  
  
“I’ll decide what’s fitting and what’s not.”  
  
Cal tried one more time, in a desperate whisper. “Joe, please. _He_ didn’t beat you.”  
  
“True enough.” The Immortan was full of chill regard. He unholstered both his pistols and pointed their obedient barrels at Cal’s heaving chest. His great head tilted in mocking sympathy. “But he did damage something that was mine. So it’s my right to make him pay.”  
  
With that, he turned and sauntered towards the wreck.

  
_____________________

  
  
It took hours for the disappointment to wear off. The Mack was long gone. Sunset rested heavy elbows on the horizon. Cal’s driver was snoring in the front seat.  
  
She found herself standing powerless at the mangled wreck, empty as a gas can.  
  
There was a body before her. Not the Perentie; that one had been lashed to the Mack’s prow with his own guts. This junked smeg was just the driver.

A slow pulse of blood was still oozing from a bullet hole in the man's chest. Cal nudged him with the toe of her boot. His eyes snapped open, gummy with pain.

"Mercy, Miss," he bubbled.

Cal drew and finished him off without even looking.  
  
He became her third bullet.  
  
The dud, she called it.  
  
  
  
_______________________

 

Joe had her on her back on the Council table. He wasn’t feeling well, yet he hadn't refused her offer. Always so greedy, she thought, as he huffed into his mask, the metal snarl hovering over her nose. Drops of sweat beaded his wrinkled brow. His state made him less forceful and she found it in herself to enjoy what he was doing. He noticed, straightening, his hands on her inner thighs.  
  
“Why’d you stop?” she asked.  
  
“You’re smiling.”  
  
“Am I not allowed to smile now, too?”  
  
They regarded each other, each with one brow raised. He said, “How long have we been doing this? Ten years?”  
  
Cal rubbed her calves along his sides. When this had all first started, he only had a hint of belly. Now his bloated stomach covered where they were joined. “Longer than that.”  
  
“You should have given me a child years ago.”  
  
“That’s what your Wives are for. I obviously can’t. We both know you’re not shooting blanks.”  
  
He resumed his thrusting, but over the mask his eyes had lost their hungry fire and taken on a contemplative cast. “I don’t know why I waste myself on you.”  
  
“You’ve got enough to go around,” she soothed, running her foot over his shoulder, spreading herself wide as she knew he liked.  
  
He let go of her legs and unclipped his mask, pushing it up on his head. As he leaned down to kiss her, Cal noticed the blisters coming up along his lips and knew he’d be in agony soon. Getting much more sick now. She felt sorry for him, and returned his kiss gently, running her fingers through his wild hair.  
  
“Oh, Callie.” He cradled her face between his unworked hands.  With his thumbs he traced the tattoos on her cheeks. She’d just added the eighth. He'd learned not to hate them. “I need an heir.”  
  
She chuckled. “Well, this isn't the way to go about it.”  
  
Joe put his hand over her mouth. “Stop.”  
  
There was something poignant about him tonight. With his mask shoved up and his hair shrieking out around it on all sides, he was anything but the God-King the world thought him to be. He was lost and ill and desperate to prove that death would not end him. Cal felt her soul go soft and her body start to glow. She humped her hips at him: faster, more. Joe obliged. Rare, for he who was always the taker, the controller of everything.  
  
“An heir,” he husked into her ear, lunging now. “Give me an heir, my Callie, and I’ll make you my Queen.”  
  
The words, so unexpected, struck the core of her and she came, shuddering like a War Rig with air brakes on lock.

 

 

_______________________

  
  
The trip up to the Immortan’s quarters was a dead man’s walk.  
  
As she went, Cal flexed her right hand, the bad one, the one that reminded her daily of what all her efforts had earned her. Over the aching bones, the skin was cracked and flaking. How dry I’ve become, Cal thought, pausing for breath. How dry and wrecked and hard.  
  
_He’s made me hard._  
  
Jesbit's words. At the time, she hadn’t wanted to believe them. Now, as she leaned against the cool rock, wondering why her guts were aching, she knew the old gat had been right.  
  
I didn’t want to be hard, she thought. Not like this.  
  
Pa would cuff her on the back of the head if he were here. _You made a bargain, Cal. No going back now._  
  
Her hand throbbed. She flexed it, forcing it into a tight fist. Pearl gray agony yowled up her arm, screaming in circles around her elbow then leaping to her shoulder. Her arm became the tail of a comet of cleansing pain. It was a storm. It scoured the rusted chassis of her soul.  
  
_I am hard. I can do this._  
  
There was someone counting on her. Not just one. Four someones, five if you counted Miss Giddy.  Wives could not flee. They could never leave. She finally understood why they were baffled by how she always returned.

Cal's prison was inside. She carried it with her; the cage in which her heart beat, the pit in her belly, empty and soft again. Later tonight, she would get blind drunk, bury her suffering under the sulphur-scented blankets of her bed, miles away. Miles from _him. But she would not be free, either._  
  
_He has already taken everything,_ she thought, and continued up.  
  
At the top of the stairs, she stopped. Dizzy, so dizzy. The corridor leading to the great iron doors fuzzed in and out of focus. When War Pups bustled out the Immortan’s quarters, she sank into the deep recesses of the stone, a shadow chipped there. The Pups did not see her. They pelted by, clay-white arrows of importance, eyes blind with holy devotion.

Cal breathed slowly and waited for the world to solidify.  
  
One last Pup came hurrying after his mates. His skinny arms overflowed with pale linens. Cal recognized them as sheets from the Immortan’s bed.  As the Pup passed, the billowing fabric brushed over her boot. It was striped with bloodstains. The sight nurtured Cal’s vengeful resolve.  
  
She took the last stair and stood straight in the hall.  
  
He would break Angharad eventually, but he would not do it today.  
  
Today, he could waste his time re-breaking something else.  
  
  
  
  
______________________________

 

  
She went to meet Jesbit alone.  
  
It was a rule of the Wasteland that journeys were always made with at least one partner. Even Pa, increasingly sure of his own place in the Immortan’s divine scheme of things, would not travel without at least one Imperator. Divinity, at least at the Bullet Farm, did not equal immortality.  
  
Stroking the small swell of her belly, Cal smiled. _I'm not alone._  
  
It was very quiet. Her truck sat cold, its engine having ceased pinging hours ago.  
  
The ride out had been long, and she was less familiar with this area of the West than she was with the East and the South. Strange stone formations jutted at sharp angles from the unhappy earth. She recognized the skeletons of trees, broken things supporting each other like Wretches on a hot day. The carcass of an old oil freighter sailed along a deep rift full of rocks the color of bone.  
  
What an uncomfortable place.  
  
She was considering firing another flare when the foul smell of smokeweed tickled her nose.  
  
Jesbit stepped up onto the spur of rock and pulled off her helmet. Her iron gray mohawk was stiff with clay.  
  
“Let me guess,” she said. “You want to talk about the border.”  
  
  
  
___________________________  
  
  
Oil pots burned in the guts of the dead freighter. Cal pointed to them, raising her brow in a silent question.  
  
“That’s it,” Jesbit said. “Home.”  
  
They had made camp, started a small fire. It was like the time before, but it also was not. No amiable male conversation warmed the air. There were no stories to tell, no reunions to be had. There was only the stiff crackle of flames and a deep sense that whatever she and Jesbit once had in common, it was now long gone.  
  
Cal considered the hulk. “I’m surprised,” she said. “Doesn’t seem your style.”  
  
“It’s easy to defend.”  
  
“You used to run a hundred miles of rock. Now you expect me to believe that boat’s all you can cover?”  
  
Jesbit poked at the fire with a spanner. “Not as many of us as there used to be.”  
  
“Really? And how many is that?”  
  
“Not enough to do anything with that border you’re so worried about.”  
  
They were already off to a bad start. Cal went to her truck and pulled a crate from the open bed. Bottles clinked inside. “Listen, Jesbit, let’s start over. I brought some chrome booze. Came up out of a fallout shelter, outside the buried city. You remember that place? It’s still giving up treasures left and right. This is rocket fuel.”  
  
“What we need is water. Food. Munitions. I only got two of them mortars left.”  
  
Cal set down the crate. “More where those came from, if you’re willing to parley.”  
  
Jesbit regarded her. The raider was dubious. “You expect me to deal with you, the Immortan’s proxy?”  
  
“Not a proxy. I’m here for the Bullet Farm, and for Gas Town.”  
  
A sneer. “Doesn't seem your style.”  
  
Cal spread her hands in an earnest gesture. “I thought we had an understanding. One hard woman to another? If I needed something, we could deal.”  
  
“That was before the Citadel cut me off.”

"I had nothing to do with that. He cut all the tribes off. He only deals with Gas Town and the Farm now."

"Why?"

Cal almost said, _Because he thinks he's a god and can do as he pleases. Because the pain clouds his mind now, more days than not, and his decisions grow poor._ But instead, she shook her head slowly, braids clinking. “Why did you come out to meet me?”  
  
Jesbit was quiet a moment. Her eyes kept slithering to the crate. “Curiosity, I guess.”  
  
Cal pushed it toward her with one foot, then sat back down on the rock. Her mood was sour, as was her stomach. Everything felt wrong: the fire too hot, the breeze too cold, her clothing too tight and Jesbit too difficult. “Jesbit, I know it’s been hard for you. And you may not believe it, but there’s part of me that feels guilty for what happened with Council. I’m here to make it up to you. Come back, but just deal with me. We leave the Immortan out of it completely.”  
  
The raider lit a fresh smoke from the glowing end of her spent one. “Does your father know you’re here?”  
  
“No, he doesn’t, but I promise you, he’ll fall in.”  
  
“Explain then how you’ll supply me with what I need and not have it get back to the Immortan.”  
  
“Gas Town is aligned." Cal tried to speak slowly. Her agitation was becoming difficult to mask. "They'll handle the numbers. The ledgers will be clean.”  
  
“Old Richard must really be fed up to break his own rules.”  
  
“Who?”  
  
Jesbit cleared her throat and hawked phlegm. “The People Eater, that nipple-twiddling pervert.”  
  
Cal swallowed thickly. “Oh.”  
  
The flames crackled and popped. Jesbit sat forward to inspect the liquor crate. She pulled out a bottle and held it up by the neck. Her craggy face rippled with shadows as the firelight filtered through the amber liquid. With a quick snap, she broke the seal, sniffed, then took a long pull. Her dark eyes were beads of black rock, gleaming over the square bottom of the bottle.  
  
“Can we deal?” Cal was doing her best not to be impatient. “Name your price.”  
  
“You could bring me an ocean and I wouldn’t deal. This a car wreck just waiting to happen.”  
  
“Jesbit, I’ve got to stop Joe from working that bloody border. He can't leave it be and the effort is killing him.”  
  
Jesbit tilted the bottle again, then dragged a long, orange ash from her cigarette. The smokeweed stank of rot and rads. Cal, already desperate and miserable, got a good whiff, coughed, gagged, then lunged on hands and knees to the edge of the rock. Her stomach was empty, but her retching was noisy and protracted, regardless.  
  
From behind her, she heard Jesbit say, “I think I’m beginning to understand.”  
  
Backhanding spittle from her mouth and trembling, Cal went back to the fire. She folded her hands over her belly in an unconscious gesture of protection.  
  
The raider got up. For a while, she stood silent and drank, regarding her freighter and its lonely, winking lights. Then she spoke. “So. One hard woman to another. How far along are you?”  
  
“Three months, give or take.”  
  
“I thought so. You look fatter.”  
  
Cal ignored the jibe.  
  
“You want him to see it born, don't you? So touching.”  
  
“Jesbit, take the deal and we both win.”  
  
The bottle, empty now, clunked to the stone. Jesbit’s words were gravel suspended in mud. “Tell me, Caliber, what does your father think of you?”  
  
“What does that have to do with anything?”

"His little girl, wheeling and dealing on her own. Alone. Behind everyone's back. All because she doesn't want her gut rat's father to meet his end on the road."

"is that a no?"

Jesbit continued on her prior trajectory. "Your Pa is a man of honor. Proper like. Will he be proud when he finds out his slut finally took enough spunk up her cunt to catch pregnant with the Immortan's bastard?"

Cal swelled and bristled. "I didn't come all the way down here for you to insult me."

"And I didn't come out to help you with your petty agenda."

Petty. That word was the primer in the shell of Cal’s rage. She exploded to her feet. “I should have known you wouldn't help!”  
  
Jesbit sneered. “Is that so? I should have known better as well, you dirty warlord meat.”

They leapt at each other and met shoulder to shoulder, jamming knees into each others thighs. Cal was taller but Jesbit had more torque. She slammed an arm around Cal's shoulders and wrenched her into a choke grip before Cal could escape. They went to the ground, rolling, both frothing and spitting in unhinged rage.  Jesbit caught Cal under the chin with the vise of one hand and began to shove her backwards to the campfire. "Tell me," she hissed, “did you ever let Rictus have a go at you? He wanted to. Oh, you didn’t know? I guess you were so busy staring at Joe during Council you never saw how that idiot kept looking down the front of your vest–”

Cal felt flames licking at her back. “You disgusting scag, Rictus is my _friend!”_  
  
“Ha! What about Corpus? That would be quite a feather in your weatherbeaten little mut–“  
  
Burning fabric, burning bridges. It didn't matter what happened next. It was over. There would be no deal. Cal set her feet and lunged into Jesbit. They went down, threw snarling punches then leapt apart, growling like idling engines.

Cal dabbed at her lip with her fingertips; they came away bloody. “You _schlanger-_ sucking gearbag, you wouldn't know a good deal if it came up and bit you in the arse!" She marched to her truck but did not get in it. She would not turn her back on Jesbit again. "Go die soft in your rust heap, smeg. Stay out of my sights!”  
  
Jesbit dusted herself off. She put her helmet on. It covered a smug grin.  “I will. But that doesn’t mean you won't be in mine.”


	19. Chapter 19

The bread was stale, which was good, because it would not be missed. There was a lot of it, which was also good, because she was hungry all the time.

Squatting in the back of the Farm pantry, Cal mowed through her stolen larder, washing everything down with a bottle of milk. As she chewed, she considered where she would hide the empty bottles until she could take them in secret back to the Citadel. The officers at the Farm got one bottle of milk per day. Cal was already on her third.

She brushed crumbs from her vest and adjusted her light traveling cloak over her shoulders so it billowed loose around her torso. Next stop would be the storeroom, for a bigger pair of pants.

The days of hiding things were growing short.

Pa was already looking at her sideways.

Joe, once she could get his attention, would be thrilled. The Wives would be jealous.

And she would be Queen.

So deep was she in fantasies of presiding over the Citadel on the arm of her warlord that she nearly walked face first into her father as he tromped down the corridor. There was a moment of commotion. The rear of the column collapsed upon itself as Pa drew up short. Guns clanged and decorative casings dislodged from battle gear to bounce free along the stone floor, tiny bells of death.

“Pa, what’s all this?”

“What do you think it is? If you wish to come, hurry up. Get your things; prepare your crew.”

“Why? Where are we going?“

Pa was all command and no care. “The southeast border.”

“Again? So soon?”

“Yes. Immortan’s orders.”

The squad began to push by, Imperators high chinned, Bullet Boys quivering with tension under their heavy crusting of fresh yellow paint. The promise of battle burned in their eyes. Cal was consumed with jealous anxiety. Soon enough, her days of warring would end. Her Barrett would be traded for a babe. There would be no more afternoons tearing across the red earth, laughing with her crew, potshotting Wretches who had wandered too far from the Farm walls. There would be a new life, and she would be forever changed.

But not yet. For now, she was still Caliber Kalashnikov, daughter of the Bullet Farmer.

And by V8, she would not be left behind.

Cal pulled herself together and trotted after them.

 

_____________________________

 

 

 

Rictus knew.

Cal hoped, for a moment, that the blazing sun would immolate the details, wash out the shadows, mask the crooked places in her face. Rictus, who had spent his entire life squinting into glare, surely would not see.

But he did.

He didn’t speak. Not at first. Confusion pushed against the compression garment pinching his mouth. Even the necklace of baby heads appeared shocked by her appearance.

Cal hefted the sling bag of tools and kept walking.

Heavy footsteps thudded after. A wide hand clamped over her shoulder.

“Rictus, my truck is nose down in a washout and my crew are waiting for me.” She spoke through the thick oil of dread. “I’m busy. Go home.”

She’d only just started coming back out. Making short runs. Never passing the mid-way point between the Bullet Farm and the Citadel. Always turning back at one particular spar of rock which reminded her of Joe’s jutting mask. This trip had been to drop supplies to a forward Farm camp tasked with reminding the Buzzards that they weren’t anyone’s favorite Wasteland tribe. The road trap which had disabled her truck was proof of that. She’d expected to be accosted on her way back from the camp after retrieving tools and was ready to deal with whatever pidgin threats the Buzzards had hidden among their rags. What she was not prepared for was Rictus, trotting behind her like some giant pet.

They passed the gleaming Big Foot, parked haphazardly across the track. Twin divots in the dirt marked the spot where Rictus had leapt from the back after spotting her. Imperators lounged inside, whispering behind their hands, forehead shine interrupted by snide wrinkles. They knew, too.

_Everyone knew._

She was so ashamed.

Cal was almost at a run now. Rictus cut in front and stopped her with his shadow.

The giant was soft, but he was not blind. Sweaty, freckled concern slid from her re-arranged face, dangled off the fingers of her mangled hand then caught upon her wide, cinched belt. It settled there, heavy as an anvil.

“Rictus.” Cal tried to pull her cloak's hood up but it was trapped under the bicycle tire strap of the tool bag. She settled for bunching it up around her mouth. “You shouldn’t be this far out. There’s nothing for you here.”

Stubborn, he shook his head.

She pointed northeast. “Rictus, go home.”

He didn’t move. His dull eyes filled up with questions. One squirmed out of his mouth. “Cal, where have you been?”

“You know where I’ve been. You can’t possibly have forgotten.”

He twisted his hoses, making his respirator squeak. He eyes raked her up and down again, settling once more on her belt, trying to put it together, the math of it all, what he expected to see and what he did not.

Cal got her hood free and flopped it over her head. “Rictus, I’m fine.”

He lingered. “But everything else… that’s okay, too, right?”

Under the shadow of the hood, she began to back away.

“Cal.” His voice was tight, his fog clearing. “Everything else… is okay?”

Cal stepped back into the bleach of the sun. Rictus followed, his shadow stretching for her, full of cool, grieving darkness she would not let herself feel.

“Cal, answer me.”

The sun beat down on his order. Rocks crunched under Cal’s retreating boots. They made a sound just like the realizations crashing together in the Immortan’s son’s brain. After a shuddering breath that shook his broad chest, Rictus uttered a long, low moan. “It’s not okay, is it?”

Cal turned away, but not before she saw him sink to his knees. He began to howl.

His Imperators mocked him.

Then they mocked her.

Cal did the only thing she could think to do: she ran.

 

_____________________________

 

 

 

The road between Gas Town and the Citadel was little more than a black skid mark ground into the red desert by decades of travel. Today, quadruple strips of fresh rubber further darkened the track, laid down by the Immortan’s new war chariot.

The Gigahorse was out on a tuning run. The occasion should have been one of chaos, of celebration, of War Boys too caught up in the ritual to feel the burns suffered in their efforts to perfect and purify the vehicle’s immortal engines.

But today there was no celebration. There was only cringing.

The Immortan and the Bullet Farmer were arguing.

Pa was circling the Gigahorse. Disgust clawed at his face. He was a brass metronome orbiting in and out of the shade cast by the twin Cadillac bodies: dull, bright, then dull again. His agitation was barely in check. “Immortan. Listen to me. This thing… It’s not maneuverable.”

Joe, standing in the shade and leaning on his war club, laughed carelessly. “Neither was the Mackinaw.”

“Yes, but it didn’t need to be. You could plow anything out of your way and barely feel it.”

“I’m going for something different this time.”

“Obviously.”

Cal had come out in a bid to reassure Pa she was back in the driver’s seat. She was, in fact, in that very spot, slouching in the cockpit of the Peacemaker, twenty paces up the track. She pulled her sunshade down a little lower and squinted until the scene before her was fuzzy. Hot and cold competed for space along her spine. I will not look at him, she told herself. _I will not._

The warlords went quiet.

Cal couldn’t help herself. She looked.

Joe was staring at her. Of course he was. He stood with feet wide apart in front of one massive tire, eyes black holes in the perfect white of his face. She dropped her attention back to her lap but the sear of his gaze remained charred across her cheeks. No. _No._

The Immortan cleared his throat. “Why are we having this conversation, Major?”

“I just have a bad feeling about this thing.”

“Kalashnikov, I don’t keep you around so you can tell me about your feelings.”

Pa made a frustrated sound. “You’re going to regret not putting bigger mirrors on it.”

“Feh, Kalashnikov. You worry too much. This is all about moving forward.”

The argument foundered. Blackthumb War Boys finished their ministrations to the holy engines and clambered down, burnt fingers interlaced over bowed heads. Joe was shouldered up and the door slammed with a heavy thud. Pa, shaking his head, returned to the Peacemaker.

Cal clambered out to allow her father to take his seat. The earth beneath her feet shook as the Gigahorse lumbered around for another run. Pa watched it for a moment, biting at his chapped lips. “Caliber, I need you to do something for me.”

“What, Pa?”

“Find him some new mirrors, would you? Bigger ones, like what’s on his War Rig.”

“Whatever for?”

Pa cast a heavy glance back at the man who had simultaneously saved and destroyed them all. “Because sometimes you need to look behind in order to see the way ahead.”

 

_____________________________

 

 

 

Mid-way to the Devil’s Spine, the order came up from the rear to stop.

The messenger bikes sped off. Citadel haulers, Gas Town flame cars, and Bullet Farm trucks all ground to a halt. Cal, proud beneath a canopy of thunder sticks, took position mid-column and threw a warning glance at her grousing crew. They shut up when the Mackinaw rumbled through the center of everything. It was a greedy beast ready for war. Grinder-fresh shark’s teeth gleamed bright silver along its nose, echoing the freshly welded spear points bristling from the prow. It lurched on its suspension and vomited hooting Imperators and War Boys. They headed to the rear, running towards the approaching Red Widow. The fire truck closed up the column and immediately began unrolling hose with which to distribute water.

Cal put her truck in park and got out. She felt slow and ungainly. Other officers were also dismounting, and soon, they all gathered in a loose circle near the Widow.

“Waste of time, this,” one said.

“Waste of men,” said another.

“Waste of breath,” Cal spat. “The Immortan wants us here, so we go. You had other plans?”

A Gas Town captain spit in her direction. "Who shat in your wheelwell, Caliber Kalashnikov?”

Cal narrowed her eyes. The captain’s forehead was dark and dull. Not an Imperator, not even close. She stepped in, bristling with menace. “I’ll advise you choose your next few words carefully. They may be your last.”

The captain curled his lip. “Bullet-laden bitch–”

Cal shoved him, badges and medals jangling. He shoved back. Cal grabbed him by his shirt, forgetting her condition for a moment, and spat epithets into his dirty face.

They were hauled apart. Harsh metal fingers left bruises on both their chests. “Enough!” Furiosa snarled. “Pour some water on it! We’re not here to make war with each other. Movement’s been spotted west. We’re not alone. I need you lot to idle down. Go back to your vehicles and stay alert. I’m going to check it out.”

Furiosa threw a leg over a bike and sped off.

The Gas Town captain waited until her dust trail shredded into haze, then dug in his rearmost foot and prepared to charge. Cal squared herself, lip curled and ready.

There was a loud _pop!_ Everyone froze.

Pressurized air fled the interior of the Mack with an unmistakable hiss. The captains scuttled. By the time Joe’s boots hit the dirt, all save Cal were back at their vehicles. Cal straightened her clothes and stood alone, clutching her elbows.

The Immortan sauntered amongst his warriors, using his scepter as a walking stick. Cal noted his calculated poise. Its thin veneer did little to hide his misery. She approached him, head down, saying, “You shouldn’t be out.”

His rusted eyes flickered with annoyance. “Don’t tell me what to do, Caliber.”

She struggled to control her alarm. “Furiosa said there may be danger.”

“I’m confident you’ll protect me.”

With an offish noise, he left her to begin an inspection of the armada. Cal followed along at a respectful distance, leaving plenty of room so the War Boys could fling themselves at the feet of their god. They begged for blessings, shivered under the weight of the Immortan’s hand, gibbered if the war club tapped a heaving chest or a bowed skull. When Joe arrived at Cal’s truck, her own crew made a controlled obeisance then went slinking away, leaving her and warlord alone.

Joe ran his hand along the bundled lances. “Did you bring enough thundersticks?”

“You know I like to throw them.”

The great head turned. His crow’s feet deepened in a smile. “And you throw so very well, my dear. You’re expecting close combat?”

“Should I expect something else?”

He sat down on the bumper of her truck, making the springs yelp in pain. “The Gates of Valhalla will open to many tomorrow. I’d prefer you stayed in the rear, Callie. Help direct the attack. Leave your thundersticks to your more-than-capable crew.”

Cal lowered her voice so just he could hear. “Joe, I didn’t drive all this way out here not to fight.”

He looked away, not answering. Panic rose in her. Why was she being forbidden from battle?  He couldn’t know. There was no way. She’d been so careful, and he’d been utterly inattentive and uninterested as of late.

She sat down next to him. “There’s no reason I can’t fight–“

“Hush.” He laid a dry finger over her lips. “Of course you can fight. _When I tell you._ But until then, you’ll camp in the rear. I’ve a feeling about tomorrow.” He paused, his respirator marking time. “When you’ve lived as long as I have, you learn to trust such things.”

Joe rose. The truck, relieved, sprang up and nearly pitched Cal off the bumper.

As he strode away into the breathless adulation of his War Boys, the throaty snarl of a bike split the dry air: Furiosa, returning safe. Soon, they would be on the move again. Disappointed, Cal made her way into the cab of her truck as her crew silently materialized. They clambered aboard while she started her engine with an unnecessarily hard turn of the key.

If she was to be banned from fighting, then what did secrets matter?

Cal nodded to herself as the truck warmed up, one hand resting on her rounding belly.

It was time. She would tell him tonight.

 

_____________________

 

 

Trap pulled a Maus. He disappeared. For days.

Cal’s Prime did his best to console her. Nothing helped.

The night was cold, the kind that sinks into bones and turns them to icy metal. That ache was a knife blade against her shins. Cal sat in the supervisor’s garret, staring at the sleeping Farm. Bundled up, she breathed her depression out in long plumes of vapor. It did nothing but pool white around her head. Her Prime, wreathed by his own breath, squatted in the corner, heating soup over a small gas flame. It was his latest bid to inspire her to move, to respond, to do something.

But she could not. Not until Trap returned.

A crow cawed somewhere, far off, faint. A dream.

Cal drifted. She let the voice of the crow pull her away. The world, so very large when Joe was alive, had shrunk. It fit completely within the confines of the garret, a space so full of tension and compressed by angst that detonation was inevitable.

It was the pain, of course. Tolerable a week ago, now it was everywhere. It burned in her belly, squeezed her spine, rocketed down her legs and turned her bones to ice. Last night, the bleeding started up again. Like her courses, but this time bright as war, full of murder. Zastav had brought the Organic at a run, and for long, silent minutes the three of them just looked at each other’s crimson hands.

There was nothing to say at this point.

The crow, silent now, seemed to agree.

The quiet sucked Cal back into her aching body. She stiffened, listening. Zastav rose from his crouch, demon-lit by the hissing gas flame. He reached for his rifle. Cal shook her head.

“Trap, is that you?” she called.

The ladder below them clattered. The entire garret shook. Trap heaved himself over the edge, landing on the wooden floorboards with the same amount of grace as a falling engine block. He was covered in filth and gaunt from dehydration. Before either Cal or Zastav could stop him, he downed Cal’s soup in four loud gulps.

“That was my dinner,” Cal told him. Her voice was low, flat. Inside, she was shaking with relief.

The Prime bristled. “Where have you been, Polecat?”

“Gas Town.”

“Gas Town!” Cal sat forward. She was a pile of elbows and scraping feet. “Trap, they have a price on your head!”

Trap put the soup tin down. He spoke to the darkness. “All that way and back, and the first thing you do is harp.”

“Trap, I can’t–“ _Lose you,_ Cal wanted to finish, but suddenly there was no strength, none at all.

The Polecat's nostrils flared. “I know you _can’t,”_ he admonished. “But I can, Cal. And I did. I saw him. I saw Scrotus. I hid with the Wretched around the lake of oil and I saw what he’s doing. He’s got rigs, flame cars, pursuits, everything lost in the Chase – he salvaged the wrecks and rebuilt them. It’s almost the size of the Citadel’s armada… And they’re ready.”

The Prime crossed his arms. “Ready for what?”

“For an attack.” Trap came to her and knelt. His fingers traced the sharp bones of her knee. “A historic one.”

Cal found strength to lay her hand upon his dirty hair. He bent his head under its insignificant weight and finished his tale. “I don’t know if he’s planning to attack us or the Citadel, but one thing I do know. We need to get the Citadel before Scrotus does, Cal. Once he controls the water, he controls everything. If that happens, it's all over.”

Cal was not wholly surprised by the news. She looked down at her Polecat, black with muck and quaking with exhaustion. She looked at her Prime, a second tin of soup set to heat over the flame between his feet. She looked out across her Farm, at the silhouettes of the Forges and the Mill, and at the stepped pit between them. The pressure in her brain dropped. The icy ache in her bones was chased out by Trap’s return. Cal took a breath and for the first time in weeks, exhaled air instead of agony.

Suddenly, the world was big again and worthwhile.

“I’ll take that soup now, Zastav,” she said to her Prime. “Trap, go rest. Tomorrow, we’ll bring the plan forward. The Bullet Farm will ride out, and we’ll see what Scrotus thinks of that when he gets to the Citadel.”

 

__________________

 

Nighttime.

Cal could tell because things were howling outside. Not close, not any more, now that most of the bleeding was done.

She guessed Furiosa had come two days ago. It could have been three. The rations she’d left had helped immensely; Cal could feel her body chroming, repairing itself.  The worst was past. Her Prime was confident of it. He'd come that morning, bringing water and news. Pa was more worried now than angry. Trap was no longer demanding search parties. Even Maus had come calling. The Prime left the tins she'd brought: healing herbs and soothing teas. Typical Maus.

Thirst gnawed. That was a good sign, too.

Cal dug about in the darkness for the tins. She found one, pinned it in the crook of her right elbow and used her left hand to open it. Most of the tea ended up in her lap. She scooped it back as best she could, cursing all the while.

Having enough energy to curse was also a good sign, she supposed.

Outside, her little campfire was already burning, lit by Zastav before he hastened back to the Farm.

She poured water into the kettle and squatted by the flames while it heated. All around her, Zastav's footprints ringed the camp, evidence of his protective lingering. Grateful tears welled. Cal squeezed her swollen eyes shut. Tears would do no good. They were only waste.

There had been so much waste already.

The tea helped. It quieted her moaning bones and cooled the ache in her oozing guts. Her nose, soothed by the steam, unclogged enough to tell her she still reeked of burnt metal and blood.

Drawn by her scent, something pattered by in the dark, sniffling and nattering.

Cal reached for a rock to throw. Her fingers found one, closed over it, slipped. Broken bones met each other at bad angles. She howled.

A little animal voice howled back.

The blue-black monstrous sky caught both voices and held them.

She decided. She could stand no more. She would return tomorrow, injuries be damned. It was too empty out here, too big, too much space for pain and fear and regret to swell into all her dark corners. She longed for the close confines of her room at the Farm, the low ceiling, her broken-backed bed. Thoughts would be small there, and if they needed more muffling, there was always her stuffed dog, on the shelf, ready for hugging.

More tears came. These were sad and she could not stop them.

It’s past, Cal reminded herself, sobbing softly around broken ribs. It happened and you're wrecked but you're alive. He’s sent no one to kill you. He could have, but he hasn’t. _He doesn't care._

She went back into the tent and lay on the groundsheet. Through the flap, she watched the night colors deepen, then drain away into the gray of dawn.

_The worst of it is over._

Cal didn’t believe it. Not for a minute.

Something even more terrible was yet to come.

 

__________________

 

The great iron doors of the Immortan's quarters closed with a hollow thud. Cal hesitated on the threshold, wild hair a sultry camouflage for her shock.

The Wasteland had finally punished its Redeemer.

The Immortan stood before the wide window, leaning heavily on his war club. The sun blared in, baking his widened silhouette into Cal's retinas. It was hot in the room, very hot. The circulators caught up his scent and blew it back on Cal: sweat and infection.

She pulled her traveling scarf up around her mouth as he turned.

"Caliber." He inclined his head, white hair tangled by the relentless pulse of the respirator bellows. He made a gesture of appraisal towards her. “You’ve recovered well.”

Cal wrinkled her nose. “You, not so much.”

The shadow under his brow was dark. “Clearly, you've learned nothing.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and shifted her weight to one leg, unconsciously mimicking him as she always had. It was hard to be relaxed, knowing now the depths of his cruelty. Angharad is counting on me, she reminded herself. So are the other girls. To buy time, she advanced into the room, snatching glances at him as she touched all the familiar things: his desk, his chair, a driveshaft of the great bed. His attention followed: curious but wary. The meaty hand that gripped the top of the war club was all knuckles. Joe might be increasingly infirm, but he wasn’t stupid. If he sensed her insincerity, she had no doubt she would leave this room a corpse and he would take his fury down to the girls.

“At least it looks like they’re feeding you well,” she said mildly.

He blinked, thrown off by her statement. Good.

“Why are you here, Caliber?”

She took one step towards him. He remained still. She took another.

The mask wheezed loudly.

When she spoke, her sincerity surprised her. “I wanted to see you.”

He lifted the war club, and for a moment, she panicked. She was not that far from him. Her legs went to water. Cal doubted she could escape a lunge.

Joe slid the club through his hands, thoughtful, then set it carefully against the wall.

“How long has it been?” he asked.

“Six months, give or take." She took a breath, steadied herself. "Long enough.”

She could feel the Immortan vacillating. Was she a danger? Was this like old times? Over it all, Cal sensed the haze of his decline. The furrows in his brow were deep as the fresh-ploughed seed rows in the gardens. His shoulders were forward, his chin down instead of up and haughty. His armor had rubbed his skin raw in many places. Miserable, and exhausted from it.

Toast had shown her something. A posture he liked. In a slow, graceful motion, Cal raised her hands, palms out in placation. She let her hair slide heavily to the side, all the decorations in tinkling a fine music. A demure smile rode her closed lips, touching her eyes, sweetening them.

False theatrics, she’d told the young woman. He'll never buy it.

But it did. Joe sagged. He held out his hands to her.

“I missed you, Callie,” he sighed.

Cal took a deep breath and closed the distance between them. She let him touch her shoulders. Her own fingers found his white hair, rough and dirty and needing care. He leaned into her a little as she stroked the side of his head. With care, she traced the all-too familiar contours of the mask, the heavy folds at the corners of his eyes. The red-rimmed lids fluttered closed. He's dying and he knows it, she thought. A quick stab of pity pierced her. She deadened herself against it. His hundred dead Wives would have no pity, so she would not, either. Not any more.

He didn’t see her smile disappear.

“Come with me,” she told him, and led him to the bath.

 

_______________________________________

 

  
Old habits die hard, Pa had told her once, and it was true. She directed Joe into his bathing chamber like she had done so many times before, swinging her hips, knowing his eyes were riveted to her rump. He sat quietly while she ran the water. The chamber pulsed with his heavy breathing and was thick with his suspicion of her motivations. Seeing this, she stripped naked with bravado, making a show of leaving all her weapons in a far corner.  
  
"Help me, then," he said, and held up his arms so she could unwrap the crusted bandages bulking up his body.  
  
By the time she got into the water with him, his eyes were glazed with the same old lust.  
  
Kissing him wasn’t as difficult as she expected. The Rot had spared his face: only a few blisters, mostly healed. She let him invade her mouth with his tongue and realized just how gentle Trap was with his kisses.  
  
Another pang, another little dead piece of her soul.  
  
It took her a long time to bathe him, and when she was done, she felt like the last six months had been a bad dream. Joe groaned in relief as he stood up from the murky water. His obvious delight over being cared for knocked additional chinks in the cold armor belted around her heart.  
  
She said, “You can’t get the girls to help you any more, can you?”  
  
He looked away, hair plastered down his chest and belly. “No.”  
  
“You are the God-King. The Immortan Joe. Order them,” Cal offered. She patted his back dry with an ancient towel, careful to not press too hard.  
  
He sighed. “I did. They were rough about it.”  
  
Cal pulled up a stool and sat him down. She began to comb out his hair. Old habits, old habits. As she stroked his hair smooth, he reached up and caught her crooked hand. It was the one he’d stomped. He held it lightly and gazed at the results of his rage for a long time.  
  
Then he muttered something.  
  
“What did you say?”  
  
He looked up at her. Tears glazed his blue eyes. Cal recognized them as same tears from the night when he had wept over the strangled babe. “I said, I’m sorry, Cal. I’m sorry about what happened.”  
  
In Cal Kalashnikov's heart, a lost little creature heard those words and grabbed for them like the catch-ring of a polecat’s rod.  
  
Joe pulled her into his lap and held her head against his chest, stroking her wet hair. Against her ear, beat of his heart was soothing and strong.  
  
"I'm so very glad you came back, my Callie," he rumbled.  
  
Cal felt the rest of the armor around her heart fall away.  
  
She let him take her to the bed.  
  
   
  
_____________________________________  
  
 

  
   
  
Diseased as he was, Joe could still rut. They went at it hard for a long time. Cal came twice and laid on her face afterwards, panting. Trap was more gentle, but he wasn’t as well equipped. She hadn’t realized it made so much of a difference.  
  
“Slut,” Joe said, squeezing her flesh as he pulled out.  
  
“Smeg,” she responded.  
  
His slap to her buttock stung. His chuckle was cruel. “Say that again, I dare you.”  
  
Cal rolled over. His tears of remorse had dried up. So had her pity. The smile she gave the warlord was equally cruel as any he could deliver. “You’ve become a dirty bastard, Joe. Girlfucker. Every time I look in the Vault, they’re younger and younger.”  
  
“You’re just getting old, Cal.”  
  
“And you’ve been old since I've known you.”  
  
He lay back, propping himself on his elbows, satisfied. “Nevertheless, I remember a time when you were about their age, back when we first started making rides to Gas Town. I don’t recall you being unhappy about those sojourns, do I?”  
  
She tied her sweaty braids into a rough topknot, arms over her head, heavy breasts on full display. “You would have done me before I even bled if you could have gotten away with it, wouldn’t you?”  
  
Joe licked his lips. His eyes dragged over her body. “Feisty, feisty. I forgot what a delight you are, my dear Callie. You’re enough to make an old man ready to rise to the occasion again.” He flipped back the sheet, revealing the start of another erection. “What do I have to do to get my Wives to be more like you?”  
  
Cal’s expression darkened. “Beat them as children.”  
  
They both laughed. It was a horrible, empty sound. He reached for her and she mounted him. They moved slowly, foreheads pressed together, breathing each other’s air. Cal wanted to weep from the familiar feel of his flesh, the old rhythms so comforting, and that same terrible light in his eyes, as selfish and cruel as everything that made her what she was.  
  
“I love you, Joe,” she breathed.  
  
He held her face between his hands. She saw something stir in his eyes, a flickering thing that went straight to the hopelessness pooled in the sump of her soul.  
  
His lips moved. The words were barely made. “I love you, too, Cal.”  
  
_At last._  
  
She wept in relief as she rode him.  
  
And _that_ was the most terrible thing of all.

 


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All the mistakes finally come together.
> 
> An epilogue will follow shortly.

Furiosa called for a detour away from whatever she had seen in the west.

Hours rolled by on the stink of exhaust. The armada plowed until they crossed their shadows at right angles. Cal slumped in the passenger seat of her truck, daydreaming. The sting of being forbidden to fight had faded. Now, there was just her news and the anticipation of the reveal.

They slowed. She sat up straight.

In the distance, a monolith edged in gold rose out of the sand. The long shape caught the sun, hatching her sight with green afterimages. It was bigger than she remembered, and ragged after decades of storms. The downed plane still banked in its desperate, unsuccessful turn.

She was swept back. How long had it been? Twenty years, twenty-five? At least that many, since she’d marched up to Joe and Rictus and introduced herself while her mother cried in the shade. The day which had been the start of everything. As the Mackinaw pulled up parallel to the plane, rag-festooned prow echoing the angled wing, she saw everything through fresh eyes and thought, _How far we have come._

Her crew was less sentimental. They piled out with noisy relief to stripe the sand in dark streams of piss.

Cal remained behind. The moment was heavy and hot. She was deeply aware it was the end of one age and the beginning of another.

The armada scattered itself along the jawline of the plane like teeth after a poorly matched fight. Cal waited until the troops finished their jockeying, then pulled into the rear, leaving a polite stretch of sand between her truck and the Mack.

For a long time, she sat. Wires furring the tears in the plane’s skin fluttered in the wind. Someone had stripped most of the aluminum off the underside of the wing, exposing smooth ribs. War Boys clambered inside: dangling, laughing, scavenging. Their busy hands tore and stole. One hauled at a curled flap and ripped it away, slashing the dark under-wing shade with a bright stabbing of light.

 _Don’t,_ Cal thought. _Let it alone._

The roof hatch of the Mack banged open. She startled and forgot the War Boys.

It was painful, watching him emerge. Cal knew his movements spoke of godly dignity: slow, heavy, precise. Agony and stubbornness was what it really was. Joe stood on the roof in duplicate: as he had been to her, and as he was now. Still tall, but slackening with age. Still full of arrogant intelligence, but rusted through with exhaustion. He had not quite been the ruler of the Wasteland when they first met, but he was now, and she intended to keep him that way. She sat up taller, his coming legacy a heavy pressure against her bladder.

Her movement caught his attention. He turned, ignoring the frantic V8s thrown in his direction.

She tilted her chin, a tiny, proud movement.

His acknowledgement was similarly small. He dipped his head a fraction then turned and dropped back into the filtered and pressurized confines of his war wagon.

Cal wound her braids around her fingers and smiled.

Night could not come fast enough.

 

_____________________________

 

They’d been sawing the barrels off shotguns for hours. Pa was seething. The Immortan’s latest demand was a desecration, or so he said. He muttered the word over and over _– desecration, desecration –_ while Cal held the weapons steady in the vise so he could wield the hacksaw. They were down to the last gun, a pristine Mossberg. He lifted it up, sighting along the barrel with loving regard. Beads of sweat rolled thoughtfully along his wiry shoulders.

He set the shotgun aside.

“Pa.” Cal gripped the vise until her knuckles whitened. She was thirteen and uncomfortable in her skin. “We’ll be one short.”

“I know."

"The Immortan will be angry."

"Life will force you to make decisions, Cal.”

“But how do you know they’re the right ones?”

Her father rested his weight on his hands, head hanging down, hair curled wet from the day’s efforts. “You won’t. Not until later. Maybe not ever.”

 

_____________________________

 

The work schedule dangled from a nail. Maus pulled it down with a snap of her wrist. She frowned as she read it. Wary Powder Mill workers set their tools aside, looking to Cal for reassurance. They all remembered the explosion, especially those with half a hand or arm to show for it.

Cal shooed the men back to work. She threw false cheer over her shoulder at her sister. “Back for a refresher, then?”

Maus didn’t look up. “I heard a rumor.”

“About what?”

“That you had it out with Jesbit. Bad.”

Cal groaned. If Maus knew, who else did? “I should have just killed her.”

“Word on the road is she’s got one out on you.”

“Let her try.”

Maus made a notation on the schedule then tacked it back up. The word “forget” flaked letters off the back of her ragged coat. Cal looked for other clues, hoping for context, but found none. Enigma, Miss Giddy would say. Her sister produced a woman’s gold bangle from a pocket and swirled it around one finger. “She covers a lot of ground, Cal. You need to be careful.”

“Feh.” Cal snatched the bangle and slipped it on. It looked spindly against her thick work gloves. With a dismissive snort she tossed it over her shoulder. It landed with a light clink in a nearby trash pile. “She could have taken me out. She didn’t. The old gat has lost her torque, Maus. She’s done.”

Maus tutted. “Don’t be so careless. You’re acting like the Wasteland can’t touch you.” She made to retrieve the bangle but stopped short as a lightning quick Reload Rat snatched up the treasure and disappeared into the dusty bowels of the Mill. “What’s going on that I don’t know?”

Smug, Cal raised her eyebrows and turned away.

Her sister stepped back to observe the working Mill. “Whatever you’re into, Cal, I hope you’re right. Because no matter what happens, I’m not coming back here to run this place.”

 

_____________________________

 

The sunset stretched on and on and on.

The camp was restless. Over an hour had passed since they’d arrived at the plane. There was much chasing on foot and four wheels. A buggy wrecked on buried debris. Lounging Gas Town flamers jeered and spouted wasteful tongues of flame at the accident. There was a brief rock-throwing competition, using the struggling buggy crew as targets.

At the Bullet Farm campsite, Cal’s men crossed ankles over ammo cans and drew designs on their bellies in gun powder. They took turns lighting them, laughing.

Across the way, the shuttered Mackinaw sat silent. Its dusty flanks sported a vast moiré of naughts and crosses, nine-part challenges fought in dour silence by listless Imperators. Naughts were winning. As the light faded, those bearing the cross bowed out and sat in the dirt, picking stones from the deep treads of tires.

Cal, cross-legged on the roof of her truck, chewed slowly on a braid.

The Immortan was making them wait. Like always. The fidgeting war party was becoming a powder keg of belligerence. When the pressure was perfect, he would emerge and speak. His words would light the night on fire.

Then they would all explode.

She shivered, uncomfortable. Patience stretched thin over the angles of her cheeks. The usual delicious tickle of waiting was absent, usurped by a thirsty anxiety.

 _Come out,_ she commanded the armored windows of the Mack. _Hurry up._

Someone on watch let out a long hoot. Everyone stood to squint at a thin dark coil smearing itself on the horizon. Barely visible, it was deemed a dust devil, and disregarded.

Cal’s men went back to work, this time on each other’s backs. Their burning flesh stroked the sides of her nostrils with dirty fingers. The stink ran her tanks dry. She vaulted off the roof. As her driver ran a line of powder across her Prime’s shoulders and lit it, she kicked at them both. “Stop.”

They grunted. Their eyes were alien with ritualized pain. For a moment, Cal feared for her safety.

“Miss Cal?” Zastav blinked himself back to civility.

“I said, stop it.”

“You’re not going soft on us, are you?” Her gunner clicked his spark-maker. The wounds on his torso wept in threatening display.

Cal opened her mouth then shut it with a snap. Bile pressed a fist under her tongue. She turned away from them, not because she was going to be sick, but because once again, she didn't have an answer.

 

_____________________________

 

The new man with the black forehead waited patiently in the armory while Cal chased her father down the hallway.

“Not an Imperator!” Cal rained spittle through clenched teeth. “That’s a _babysitter.”_

Pa wiped at his cheek, careful with his rough glove. His face was slashed from the flak grenade an industrious wanderer had thrown while they rolled away from Gas Town the day before. Cal sported only a slice across the forehead. Her father had shielded her from the blast.

He paused now, regarding the small smear of blood on his glove. “We all have a personal guard, especially those of us new to Council. Zastav will serve and protect you. I selected him myself.”

“I don’t need protection!”

His stitched brow raised unevenly. “Are you saying I don’t know what’s good for my own daughter?”

Cal hissed in rage. “I can take care of myself!”

“Is that so?” Her father swung around. “You who showed up hours late after last Council, your clothes torn, bruises on your neck and not a single bullet discharged? I’m not going to bother asking you what happened, but the fact you didn’t even try to defend yourself–“

She cursed herself for missing that small detail. Horrified fury throbbed slow reminders across her cut forehead. The last tryst with Joe – a blur of thrashing, glorious half-pain hammered out in a clammy niche in the Citadel Garage – had left her dizzy and soft-headed. Her self-satisfaction over her conquest of the warlord eclipsed all sense. She came staggering home at moonset, a story ready about an attack by random road trash. Her father met her in stony fury at the door. He'd stared her in the eye, noted the buckles were all ripped off her vest. Then he checked her pistols, cuffed her twice across the back of the head and disappeared into his rooms.

Now, the morning greeted her with _this._

Cal took two shuddering breaths. “Zastav. Fine.”

Pa chuckled. “I’m sure you two will find a way to work together.”

 

_____________________________

 

Frustrated War Boys burned the plane in honor of their god.

Cal, lips cracked by the constant kissing of the dry wind, mourned its burning.

A clink of metal heralded Pa's return from evening patrol. He strolled up to where she sat on her truck. She peered from under her canopy of thundersticks at him.

“Quite the spectacle, isn’t it?”

“He’ll come out soon.” Cal opened a hand towards the shuttered Mack.

“I imagine so.” Pa hooked a glove around the grab bar and clambered into the truck’s bed.

“Before the plane burns out.”

“Of course.” Pa smiled at the destruction taking place. “To give his blessing. To open the Gates for them.” He laid a hand on her shoulder. “Are you ready?”

She gestured at the thundersticks. “More than.”

“It will be quite the battle.”

A sigh escaped her. “The Immortan wants me to stay in the rear.”

His fingers squeezed, released. “Is that so?”

“He says he has a feeling about tomorrow.”

They fell into silence. Pa’s frown gathered up the flickering of the fire. As bikes carved dry blood circles at every point of the compass, Cal thought she saw a flash of movement outside the camp perimeter. She rubbed her eyes, filling her lids with shooting stars. Once they finished falling, a second look showed nothing but velveteen half-shadows tossed down by the moon.

Her father’s battle finery rattled. “If the Immortan wishes you to stay behind, then that is what you will do. Don’t disobey him, Caliber.” His goggles tilted to the side and threatened to slide off. With one hand and a bark of brittle laughter, he caught them. “Don’t look so disappointed! There will always be other battles. This is the Wasteland, after all.”

 

_____________________________

 

Zastav was made of patience. It poured out of him like miles of asphalt. But when the Bullet Farmer lit off on a third rant in as many days, even he seemed at wit’s end.

“What’s he on about now?” he asked.

Standing at his shoulder, Cal lifted one hand to cover her mouth. “Just more madness.”

“Over what?”

“Who can say?”

Pa was marching around the Peacemaker in his nightshirt, holding both Buntlines up to the sky. A stream of bizarre invocations poured from between his gnashing teeth. The entirety of the Farm command was standing at attention in the yard. All production was shut down and would remain so until Kalashnikov finished his impassioned sermon. He was limned in grainy light too thin to conceal his increasing mania. The command stood pious, hands clasped over belt buckles, nodding to the tumbled words. Their beatific expressions ground Cal’s gears.

Is this the price of serving a god? she mused.

Her father thrust a finger in her direction, demanding she join him in his procession.

She pretended not to see. She had no stomach for marching. She’d put in her own penance earlier that day at the Citadel and her insides ached.

Pa spat and resumed his tank-circling sermon.

Her Prime moved a little closer. He was not pious, but he was trustworthy. Crumpled in one fist were his weekly chits, the price which sealed his lips against what his eyes sometimes saw and what his ears more often heard.

“Put those away,” she warned.

The Imperator crinkled the paper. He looked towards her father, who had accelerated into inarticulate shouting. “He won’t know what they’re for.”

Cal grabbed Zastav’s thick wrist. She stood on tiptoe, teeth brushing his ear. The intimate moment was full of razors. “Don’t ever question me, Zastav. My Pa might be crazy, but he’s not stupid.”

 

_____________________________

 

The plane burned low.

A light came on inside the Mack. Soon now.

Cal counted to ten. She slid quietly off the roof, and edged up to where her Prime stood, admiring his burns.

“Zastav.” She kept her voice low. “I’m sorry I kicked you earlier.”

He made a forgiving gesture. “No worries, Miss Cal.”

“I need to make it up to you.”

“You do not.”

“But I must.” She rustled paper in her pocket. A lot of it. “While those heal, you’ll be hungry. Very hungry. I can fix that.”

He laid two blackened fingers against his strong chin. “What is it you need?”

She nodded towards the Mack. “Just a minor distraction.”

 

_____________________________

 

“When do _I_ get to sit at the table?” Rictus screamed.

Joe, head in hand, peered at his son through his whitened fingers.

“I want to _sit!”_

No one had seen the outburst coming. One moment Rictus was content at the long-looker, dry-eyed in his efforts to relive his earlier glory by spotting another fire truck, and the next he was river-faced and bellowing.

“Cal gets to sit! Why can’t I?”

Cal flicked a glance down the Council table. Pa had his eyes shut tight, his .50 cal shell frozen between index and middle finger. The People Eater was pressing his pen against blistered lips, underlining efforts to suppress laughter. The other tribe leaders bore the expressions they used when weathering dust storms.

“When, Dad? _When?”_ Rictus punctuated his demand by flipping the nearest chair. It bounced off the wall and cracked the window.

Joe rose. Cal was surprised to see Rictus shrink back from his father, despite the enormous difference in size. The hissing mask barely came level with Rictus’ collarbones. Rictus began to retreat, stopping only when the canisters on his back clanged against the rough rock wall.

The Immortan’s voice hissed through the Council chamber. “Rictus, would you like Callie’s seat?”

Rictus cast about in confusion, smart enough to be alarmed. Cal went stiff, not liking Joe's logic.

“You’re stronger than she is, Rictus.”

“I know that–“

“Better in a fight.”

“True, Dad, but–“

The warlord turned to where Cal hunched. He tilted his head back, taunting. “You could take that chair right out from under her and there wouldn’t be a thing she could do about it.”

“That wouldn’t be right–“

“But it’s what you _want,_ son.”

Cal ignored Joe’s cruel gaze and pleaded at her oldest friend with her eyes. No one else was watching; the entire Council was suddenly very interested in the backs of its hands, Pa included.

Rictus squashed the baby heads of his necklace in a slow rosary. “Cal worked hard for her seat, Dad. Harder than I ever could. You know that. I'll just stand at the glass, and watch. For another Widow!"

Joe gave a disgusted grunt. Rictus had one more thing to say. “She’s smarter than me, too.“

Cal relaxed and tried not to smile. 

Joe rolled his eyes. “Not by much.”

 

_____________________________

 

Zastav earned his chits. The flare took the deep blue of the night and chased it away. Stark highlights scattered men, making shadows sharp enough to cut. Like clockwork, Joe’s Prime came running to bang on the door of the Mack, calling for his master.

Cal waited in the boxy shadow of the Red Widow, her hair knotted up so it would not clink.

Joe came out. He was masked but half-armored, trailing bandages from uncovered arms. With unconcerned slowness, he wandered the broken-backed area between the three vehicles, eyeing the sky. A second flare sang up, re-sharpening the shadows: Zastav, overdoing it as usual. Cal smoothed her hands over her piled hair as Joe’s Prime hustled off to investigate.

“Immortan,” she whispered. “Joe.”

He came round with a clatter. “Callie. What’s going on?”

“It’s nothing.”

“It sounds like something.”

“Just foolishness.” She slipped forward into the unsteady light to lay a hand on his bandaged arm. Her fingers moved gently, tucking loose ends. “I need a moment of your time.”

She felt him brighten and her heart brightened with him. Words, so carefully planned, evaporated. For a moment, she just stood holding his arm, then just as her tongue broke free, another flare interrupted. It burst directly over their heads. Joe’s expectant expression vanished, replaced by a stillness so absolute Cal knew in that moment what he would look like when he was dead.

The flare was green.

The Triumvirate did not use green flares.

A dull, far-off thud made them jump.

Now a whistle, growing louder.

“Incoming!” Cal screamed, and dragged Joe for cover as best she could.

 

___________________________________

 

Angharad was so proud when she found the old razor blades.

“Now we’re both ugly.” The slim girl turned her cheek so Cal could appreciate the slashes. They were both in the Organic’s clinic; Angharad for the cuts, Cal for repairs from a War Pup’s wild shot on the Range.

Cal gave her a rueful smile. “Does it stop him, though?”

Angharad frowned. “No.”

Cal winced as the Organic pulled stitches across her bicep. “I told you it wouldn’t.”

 

___________________________________

 

The cookery tent took the hit. Pans went airborne. Screams came after, shredded limb shrill.

Cal crouched with Joe behind her truck. They sheltered behind one of the knobby wheels, and for a moment it seemed he would be grateful for her protection. Then he twisted a hand in her piled hair, eyes glittering slits.

“Who has mortars? Who?” he shouted.

“I don’t know!”

“And I don’t believe you.” With a cruel wrench of his arm, he bent her head back. Her knotted braids provided him a perfect grip. “Tell me now, and tell the truth, Callie, or I’ll break your neck right here.”

“I swear I–!” Cal struggled to stay upright. Sick with the Rot he might be, the Immortan still possessed much of the strength of his early years. Pain seared across her scalp and down her neck. Another two inches and he would be true to his word.

“Who, Callie?” Another wrench.

“Joe, please, don’t–“ She clawed at his forearm. He was going to kill her.

“Then stop lying and tell me who!”

He shoved her down. Her cheek hit the sand. Bullets began to zip over the camp. Air horns blared. Cal heard orders, questions, declarations of Valhalla, but most of all, the Immortan’s wet, enraged breathing.

“I’ll ask once more, Callie. _Who has mortars?”_ He punctuated each word with a rough jerk.

Eyes watering, breath squealing in her throat, Cal knew then the true extent of her grievous error. She had underestimated _everything._ The realization drained her strength like water in guzz. Her body sagged. Joe took her slackening for submission and snarled in triumph. “Are you ready to tell me now?”

Her answer was all grit. “Jesbit.”

“Jesbit has mortars.”

“Yes.”

“Of your doing?”

“A long time ago, but yes.”

He gave her one last shove, then released her. Cal spit sand and scuttled backwards until a chain-link bumper made uneven diamonds across her rump. She knew she should have been relieved, but all she felt was outmatched, on every level.

There was a host of ricochets that drove them both to their bellies. When Cal picked up her head, Joe was at her again, reaching for her. She froze as his hands slid along her cheeks. His thumbs pressed against her temples in a charade of tenderness. “How many more mortars… _does… she… have?”_

“Only one.”

 

______________________

 

Miss Giddy had taught them of three points. Remove one, and the balance would be broken. Maintain them, and there was stability for all. For years, that lesson lived in Cal’s mind as the Citadel, Gas Town, and the Bullet Farm.

She saw that same shape now in the form of the Mackinaw, Red Widow, and her truck. The familiarity reassured her. A Bullet Farm fifty lighting up the night helped as well.

She peered over the bedrail during a pause in the shooting. “We’re too exposed. We need to get to the Mack.”

Joe grunted disagreement. “No. That’s right where Jesbit will want me.”

“Then what do we do? The Widow’s too far, and not as well armored.”

He rapped one knuckle against a body panel. “How fast can this thing go?”

“You can’t be serious.”

“It’s kept you safe for years, hasn’t it?”

“We have no idea where Jesbit is! We could drive right into her!”

The warlord looked out towards the blackness that pressed against the rear of the column. “Have you ever tried to hit a moving target with a mortar?”

“Of course not. That’s not what they’re for.”

He traced the outline of the Bullet Farm insignia on her door, leaving chalky highlights along the wreath of casings. “Precisely, Callie. Now get in this truck and drive. I’m done being a sitting duck.

“A what?”

“Just shut up and get us out of here.”

The armored panels swallowed enemy fire as they scrambled inside. A bullet starred the windshield but did not go through. Breathless, Cal wrenched the truck into gear. Tires caught beneath the shrieking transmission. They launched, lightless, into the desert.

Behind them, Mack and the Red Widow dwindled rapidly.

The stable shape was broken. Everything was unraveling.

Cal downshifted and felt deeply sick.

 

__________________________

 

Uneven sand tested her worn shocks. Less than two minutes in, they’d both hit their heads against the side windows as the Wasteland tried to throw them off its back. The interior of the truck grew red hot from their unpleasant tempers. Snarling and snapping, Cal fought her way up a rise. At the top, Joe ordered a halt and turn, so they might observe the camp. She wrung the truck to a stop, and made him hit his head again.

At distance, the attack didn’t seem particularly severe. War Boys were harpooning Irondog bikes with thundersticks. Gas Town pursuit cars vomited bright flame all along the camp’s western flank. A brilliant light racing down the east flank told Cal her father had the Peacemaker running wide open. Muzzle-flashes from its many machine guns drove half-seen silhouettes down to their deaths.

Cal leaned a forearm over the steering wheel. “They’re defending properly now. It will be all right.”

Joe glared at her. “Did I ask you to speak?”

“I can’t protect you if you forbid me to advise.”

“When did I ever say I needed your advice?“

Cal gave him her shoulder. They sat in silence.

The quiet allowed everything to hurt: her hair, her face, her back and her pride. Maybe her crew was right – she had gone soft, and just not realized it. Cal arched her aching back, the stretch unhelpful, and snuck a sidelong glance at the jutting profile next to her.

A gleam under the warlord’s heavy brow told her he was looking at her, too. She heard the respirator’s whistle as he inhaled to speak, then as before, they were interrupted.

Rows of small yellow lights were rippling on in the camp, outlining an unmistakable, marine shape. The lights terminated at double-lensed lamps which blinked like eyes as they warmed up. Only one vehicle had such a visage. The Mackinaw glared through the gap left by Cal’s departed truck.

“What the–“ He ripped her binoculars down from their roof clip and hunched into the dash, staring at this new development.

Figures began leaping into the Mackinaw's cab.

“For V8’s sake,” Cal whispered. She turned to Joe. “Do they know how to drive it?”

“What does starting it matter when every smeg from here to the Powder Lakes can see it?”

“Joe, they only have one mortar and it’s so unlikely–“

Cal fell silent. Around the Mack, troops began scattering, kicking sand and each other in their panic. At this distance, she couldn’t hear the whistle, but felt the truth of it in her bones.

The Mackinaw let off its air brakes and jerked forward, in an impossibly slow bolt to safety.

It exploded a second later.

 

__________________________

 

The blast was historic. Chrome, even. Pressurized, oxygen-rich air inside the Immortan’s vehicle fed a fireball more beautiful than any Before Time bloom. Wheels, body panels and pipes shot skyward. The cab did a somersault, separating from the body with a crack that slapped Cal across the face.

Horrified, she clambered out of the truck. Dark shapes of bikes were fleeing across the featureless sand, too long and low to be Citadel. She swung a leg up and mounted the fifty in its bed-pivot, then began to empty it after them. The flashes and racket drew Triumvirate troops, who had to stop far out of range until her trigger clicked dry.

Shaking, she stayed seated at the machine gun. Someone grabbed her collar and pulled her down. She was dragged to her feet, spun, and forced to watch the camp disintegrate.

Burning everywhere.

War Boys screaming, begging for Valhalla.

Imperators shouting orders, trying to salvage what wasn’t already destroyed.

And the Mack, little more than a fire-blackened, blast-bent prow jutting from a shredded mangle of steel.

Joe came up behind her. He sank cruel fingers into her shoulder and jammed the muzzle of his handgun against the base of her skull. “Tell me why I shouldn’t blow your brains out right now, Caliber.”

She hung her head.

"This is all your fault, you know."

"I know, Joe." Cal tried to be calm. If she stayed calm, she might turn and whisper her state to him. He was near enough to hear. But she knew in her heart it wouldn’t help. He would deem it a lie, a pathetic play for mercy. He would probably order her cut open, just to prove he was right. That would be even worse. She sank to her knees, resigned. If she was to die, she would take a bullet made by her own people.

Her tangled braids came loose from their knots and fell down, obscuring her vision. They helped hide her face from the men who had so feared her only hours before. Their collective anticipation of her coming punishment was a shout on the tip of every surviving War Boy's tongue. Cal wondered if they would violate her dead body afterwards.

Seconds passed. Nothing happened.

Eventually, she grew bored. “Do you need me to do it myself?”

“Shut up and get up.”

She did.

Joe came around, thick torso blocking her view of his destroyed vehicle. The revolver was back in its holster. The burning camp crowned him in a corona of flickering orange. Out of the corner of her eye, Cal could see him clenching and unclenching his left fist.

“It would probably be easier if you just shot me,” she said quietly.

His bushy brows drew down. “Do you think it will be easy for me to replace the Mackinaw?”

“No, Immortan.”

“Then I don’t intend to make it easy for you.”

 

__________________________

 

His first blow wasn’t to her face. It was to her stomach.

After that, none of the rest mattered.

 

__________________________

 

 

_Click._

_Click._

_Click._

“What are you _doing?”_ Strong hands wrenched the Buntline away from her temple. Trap clutched the long gun to his chest in disbelief.

“V8 damn you, Trap,” Cal snarled. There was no strength in her words. They bounced off the Polecat’s chest to linger about four inches over the dusty dinner table, tickling the backs of her shaking hands.

There’d been a bullet on the table that morning. Of all places. Trap had brought it to her. She’d read the message then thrown it on the floor.

 _Scrotus is coming,_ it said. _He’s coming for the Citadel and then he’s coming for you._

“Give me my gun back or leave,” she ordered.

Trap rested the Buntline on the table by its long barrel. “Is that what you want? To blow your head off and do nothing?”

“You said it yourself, Trap. The Gas Town armada is huge. We don’t stand a chance.”

“So you’re giving up?”

She coughed into her sleeve. Bright blood flecked the spittle. She stared at it, wilting. “Yes, Trap. I’m giving up.”

Her man blew a slow stream of air from between this teeth. “You know what, Cal? This is the last straw. You won’t let anyone help you, not me, not your Organic, not even your sister.” He hefted her father’s gun, stroking the length of it with his stained, careful fingers. “Here, then. Take this back. Ventilate yourself. See if I care. Your father would be proud.”

His words cut deep but Cal no longer had the strength to take the gun.

Trap shook it at her. “Take it!”

Cal closed her eyes. Hot tears seeped over the blue tattoos on her cheeks.

“Take it! By the V8 and the Immortan, take this fuku-damned gun and finish it. You’re the last of the old regime. Go junk yourself already.”

She couldn’t move. Both her arms had gone to lead and pain, both physical and emotional, paralyzed her.

With an inarticulate snarl, Trap slung the Bunt across the table. His long limbs, which she had so loved to feel around herself, were electrified with rage. At the doorway, he paused, quaking.

“You know what chaps me the most about you, Cal?” he shouted. “You had your chance, and you threw it away. You had power. You could have been _better._ I thought you wanted better. You had the Wives on your side because of the way the Immortan dragged you around by the nose all your life. They would have listened to you. All you had to do was step _up._ But you didn’t. You stepped _down._ Right to where he left off after the Chase. Look at you. You’re a half-dead, crazy smeg, plotting revenge against what? A world trying to change? To rise Up? Don’t you see? You’ve become a destroyer, just like he was!”

Cal laid her head down against the rough surface of the table. She looked at Trap through her oily, unkempt hair. Her voice faltered. She cleared her throat with a huge effort and tried again. “Trap, I... I just don’t know how else to be.”

The Polecat’s eyes burned with sorrowful anger. “Cal, that’s just mediocre.”


	21. Epilogue

Cal Kalashnikov shivers. She puts the memories away. They don’t go easily, for there are so many of them, more than she could ever tell Zastav on a hundred drunken nights.  
  
She's dragged herself out after all. The grab rails on the back of the truck are the only things keeping her upright. The bleeding is bad. She was afraid at first, but now the blood blackening her skirting and trousers seems normal. She is a cracked block, her engine laboring at the end of it's life like the one in the leaking Abrams, parked nearby. Only the Peacemaker’s Ghost needs to be healthy, and it is.  
  
Her brass is at home. Piled neat on the dinner table, polished one last time. She wonders if Seamstress will wail when she sees it. She is saddened by that thought but glad to be free of its heavy burden. The burden she carries is large enough.

Her knees try to buckle, regardless.

 _Not yet, not yet._  
  
This far edge of her life is full of the ghosts of men. They howl. She has positioned her Abrams a mile from the Citadel. The dawn landscape is blue-gray but in her minds eye, she sees the red stone and thinks: _Blood. I am surrounded by an ocean of blood._  
  
Her breath is airless. The world presses in and she understands she is dying.  
  
She thinks: _This is how Joe must have felt. Without the mask. Without the filtered air of the Vault._  
  
_How had he withstood it for so long?_  
  
She turns her leaden eyes up to the sky.  A few stars still twinkle, where the dark vault arches away from the coming sunrise. _Are you up there?_ she wonders. _Is that your Valhalla, Joe? Where the sun never really rises, where it’s always morning-cool and the night’s condensation is forever coughing from the mouths of freshly-awakened exhausts? A land where war is plentiful and War Boys are strong, where a warlord’s rule is absolute and nothing stands in the way to turn his hand? Is it all just a story for dying children, or is there truth in it?_

And...

 _Will you witness me?_  
  
She doesn’t know. The only thing she’s sure of is her plan.  
  
Her Prime catches her as she droops. She hasn’t eaten much in a few weeks and she’s light now, light as ash, and ready.  
  
“It’s time,” she says. She sees in Zastav's eyes that he’s already giving speeches from the balcony, giving orders, and she knows he’ll be good at it.  
  
Cal nods. Zastav makes sure she’s steady, then vaults over the side of the truck. He’s in the Peacemaker’s Ghost soon after, rolling forward in first gear. He’ll go over the lip as soon as she fires, and in two minutes will be at the rear of the Immortan’s Tower. Five minutes after that, he'll be Up Top.  
  
Seven minutes and all will be right again.  
  
Behind her, she feels the onrush of the Gas Town forces. They won’t make it. At least ten minutes behind, an eternity once the Dome explodes.  
  
She raises her hand. The effort takes all her strength. The Citadel goes blurry, the world becomes soft. Cal wants to go to that softness but she is her father's daughter. She struggles back from the edge of the dark and focuses one last burst of anger into a hoarse command.  
  
“Fire!”  
  
  
_______________________

  
The first shell drops into the chamber, its two mates secure in cubbies nearby. A gunner slams the hatch shut. Another presses the triggers.  
  
There’s a clunk in the tube and then nothing. The men frown at each other.  
  
Cal feels the weight of the silence. Its meaning fills her with horror. She cries out, “Do not open the breech!”  
  
Her crew, behind inches of plate armor, cannot hear her.  
  
The first gunner opens the breech. They stare at the end of the one-twenty, not sure what to do.  
  
________________________  
  
  
The leading edge of the sun ignites the horizon.  
  
It’s less bright than what happens on the ridge.  
  
________________________  
  
  
In the Citadel, Furiosa bolts out of bed. The explosion leaves the window shivering in its frame. The room is too big for her meager needs; when the giant drive-shaft four poster bed was in it, the size made sense. Now, it takes her far too many steps to reach the glass. A fireball is boiling up a mile off, crowned by a mushroom cloud of black smoke. Beyond that, a huge surf of headlights. The wave of them churns the horizon.  
  
She’s armless in the corridor ten seconds later, raising the alarm.  
  
  
_______________________

The Wretched lean into the shockwave. Some are knocked to their knees. Babies start to cry. The blast finishes reverberating between the sandstone towers and for a few moments the Waste is as silent as the day after the world was killed. Then the roar of the approaching Gas Town armada fills the dead air, and the Wretched erupt into panic.  
  
_______________________  
  
  
It took all night for Trap to walk to the Citadel. His strong arms and hands were welcomed into the Garage after just a few cursory questions. He is at the lip of the War Tower’s upper garage when the dawn explodes. Flames blast up, sideways, even down from the ridge camp. War Pups come running to cluster at his knees, eyes wide, mouths smooth Os. They look to him as if he should have answers.  
  
There’s an empty place in his breast all of a sudden. The depth of it surprises him.  
  
Somebody says, “I’m afraid.”  
  
Alarms begin to sound. The drummers, tossed from their hammocks, use elbows and palms to call the war tattoo. Trap runs with the others to the cars and claims a gunner’s platform.  
  
He grips the gun and sets his feet. It is heavy and familiar. Ghostly hands close over his own, guiding him to the trigger. Cal had been so delighted when he’d asked her to teach him to fire a pivot-mounted fifty. Her smile, so often shuttered by suspicions or her own angry motivations, had been glad and free. Innocent.

Maybe even joyful.

He misses her already.  
  
A War Pup climbs in with him. Trap pats the bald head. His gaze remains inward as their sedan is lowered to the ground. The ache of unexpected loss is slick, cold oil in the pit of his stomach. He puts his hand in his belt pouch. His fingers close around something cold. A bullet, a slender shell, and in it, a note he can’t and won’t ever read.  
  
  
________________________  
  
  
Capable’s the first one out. Cheedo runs behind, panting in fear. Dag remains, holding a one-woman court at the top of the Sanctum stairway, howling dire arias of madness. Only Toast thinks to look for Corpus, and finds him in the former Council room, already pinned to the long-looker.  
  
“What was that?” she asks him.  
  
He doesn’t take the glass away. His little fingers are clenched pale around the eyepiece. “Explosion on the ridge. Hard to tell. Looks like a tank. Or maybe two. Everything’s burning.”  
  
Toast doesn’t need to look through the glass to know, but she asks anyways. “Bullet Farm?”  
  
“Probably.”  
  
“Goddamn it. Has to be Cal.”  
  
“She’s not the problem.” Corpus drags air into his troubled lungs. When he pushes the long-looker away, the cup has made an angry red mark around his eye. He points, little finger shaking. “That Gas Town armada is.”  
  
  
________________________  
  
  
The Farm cars that survive the blast sit stunned. Pieces of the Abrams, Cal’s truck and the Peacemaker’s Ghost return to earth as guillotines. They cut down those rushing to rescue those who are still alive. More than a few are confused. Bruised brains swell, blood is pushed out of ringing ears. Some struggle to start scorched vehicles and run, but by the time the engines turn over, the first of Gas Town’s lead bikes are on them. The kills are easy. The Farm cars are claimed and the attack force grows.  
  
Scrotus sits on the back of his ‘ute in the rear of the war party, squeezing a massive machine gun between his thighs. He’s grinning, slicing laughter through filed teeth. It’s been two decades since he’s set foot in the Citadel and he’s interested in seeing what’s left of his inheritance.  
  
He crunches over burning debris and starts down the ridge. A swift movement catches his eye. He thinks: _That’s not one of my bikes,_ then a thunderstick explodes across the hood of the ‘ute. After that, he’s too busy putting out flames to follow the progress of the long motorcycle.  
  
  
________________________  
  
  
It takes hours for the wreckage on the ridge to finally stop burning.  
  
A quick drive-by tells Maus there’s no hope.  
  
On the plain, the warring fleets blood circle the Citadel. The dust stretches up to screen the verdant gardens with brown. Maus remembers a book about vast creatures called whales and how they hunted fish by making bubble nets. This is a dust net. Twenty thousand terrified Wretched pack against the towers, their shredded flesh and skinhuts an unexpected armament. The only reason the Gas Town armada hasn’t yet stormed the Citadel is because they can’t get in.  
  
Maus parks her long bike as far away from the mess as possible. After a while, a half-dozen others join her. One props a burly Kwaka against a convenient boulder and wanders over.  
  
She looks briefly at the biker, then stares for a long while at the black smoke snaking from the ridge. When she speaks, her voice is small. “Did you know that would happen?”  
  
A chuckle. “Did you think you got that good of a deal on those shells all by yourself?”  
  
Maus is suddenly cold and very lonely.  
  
“Who do you think will win?” the newcomer asks.  
  
Maus doesn’t respond. With shaking fingers, she adjusts her thick muffler. It's perfect for keeping out sand on long rides and for padding the uncomfortable collar that is currently working wounds into her collarbones. She tucks fabric in around the metal and wonders if she’ll ever be able to get it off. The weld job is alpha-prime.  
  
“You’ll get used to it.” The newcomer lights smokeweed, blows noxious smoke across Maus’ peeling forehead. “And come now, you were so full of words earlier when you came to me. Answer: _who will win?_  
  
True, Maus had once possessed many words. Now she was running low. In fact, she was just about out.  
  
She scrounges. She’s good at scrounging. She’s done it all her life. She finds six words. Later, when the mess at the Citadel is sorted, she’ll take a few and paint them on herself. In the meantime, she spits them sour into the sand. “Nobody wins, Jesbit,” she says. “We all lose.”  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading my very crazy experiment in story and timeline structure. I really enjoyed sharing it with all of you and your supportive comments and enthusiasm helped keep me going when it got really hard. I do plan to post a collection of "deleted" flashbacks which didn't make it in. However, I do need to catch up on some other creative projects which have been put on hold in the last few months while I finished this, so that will be a few weeks out at least.
> 
> MMFR fandom is the best! See you on the road, scags!


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